The Grinning Gargoyle
by detectivejigsaw
Summary: John has been keeping an incredible, magical secret from Sherlock that is just now coming to light. Post Baskerville. Technically a crossover from a book series I've been writing, but I don't know if that counts, since it hasn't officially been published. No slash, AU. Title stands until someone can suggest a better one.
1. John is Keeping Secrets

When the rattling at his doorknob began, John called out, "That's locked for a reason."

"I'm fully aware of that," Sherlock retorted, continuing to pick the lock.

"The reason," John was now using a tone of voice indicating that his patience was being sorely tried, "is that I don't want you in here at the moment."

"But I'm bored," the detective complained.

"I'm busy right now. Come back later."

Undeterred, Sherlock finished his work, and turned the door handle, starting to swing it open. Only to find himself staring down the barrel of a handgun.

John stood right in the crack of the door, pointing the gun resolutely between his friend's eyes. "Get out, Sherlock."

Though understandably alarmed by this sudden turn of events, the detective scoffed, "You and I both know that you would never really shoot me. Now stop being so childish-"

"_OUT_."

The doctor's finger tightened on the trigger, causing Sherlock's heart to involuntarily speed up. He stared down at John in hurt betrayal. What could he possibly be guarding so valiantly that he was willing to threaten Sherlock to keep him out? They were friends, right? Weren't friends not supposed to keep secrets from each other? Or had his research been wrong? After another second in which their contest of wills lasted, he reluctantly stepped back. Instantly the door was shut and locked again, confirming his suspicions that something was going on.

As he stood there, Sherlock realized that John had been looking almost..._afraid_ as he stood there threatening the detective with the gun. Even though his hand was steady, his face was pale, his eyes were frightened, and Sherlock could swear there had been a sheen of sweat on the doctor's forehead. Something-or someone-was in his room that he didn't want Sherlock to see. And he wanted to know what.


	2. John Accepts a Responsibility

John gave a small sigh of relief and ran a hand through his hair. That had been far too close. It did occur to him that Sherlock would try to listen at the door, but the other person occupying his room set a small box on the desk that he said was bespelled to make sure the room stayed silent to any outside ears. So the doctor put down the gun, and turned back to his guest.

"I'm telling you, I can't do this. You need to take it somewhere else."

"It's not an it, it's a him," was the retort. The trench-coated figure who John only knew as Mr. Wormwood folded his arms stubbornly. "And it's really not an option; you're the only one I trust to look after him until the crisis ends. Besides, how can you say no to that face?"

The face in question belonged to the baby dragon now lying on John's bed, staring at the two debating men out of wide blue eyes as little wisps of smoke blew out his nostrils. He was a young Chinese dragon, about the size of a very long dachshund, with aquamarine and dark gold scales, and small golden mustaches. And, if John was completely honest with himself, the dragon was quite cute. But that did not alter the fact that it was nothing short of impractical for him to keep it in the flat-especially since he was sharing it with Sherlock "Can't keep his nose out of other people's business" Holmes.

"I don't think you understand-can't you just keep him? Or leave him with one of your friends?"

"No," Mr. Wormwood growled in exasperation. "It's too dangerous back home. The mob will be looking for him there."

"Doesn't it seem a little extreme for you to bring him to the other side of the world, though?" He didn't bother trying not to be sarcastic.

"Kind of. But I remembered that first time we met and how you helped me, and thought to myself, 'Hey, that doctor is both smart and extremely compassionate, an excellent father figure. Surely he could manage the little rascal for a month or so.'" He adjusted his fedora. Personally John thought it was more than a little ridiculous for Mr. Wormwood to be wearing the whole secretive outfit-he looked like he was in a low-budget spy movie-but he'd been assured that he was better off seeing as little of his contact's (as he decided to refer to him until a better title came up) face and form as possible.

The doctor had been able, during their few meetings, to glean a few things about Mr. Wormwood that marked him as, shall we say, not quite human. For one thing, he always smelled faintly of smoke. Even though he was always wearing dark glasses when he contacted John, he'd seen flickers of red behind them. The other man was more at home in the dark than the light, and in fact seemed to have an almost loathing for electric lights of any kind. He was unusually strong. His senses were a lot stronger than the average human's; heck, they were even stronger than Sherlock's. And a few times when he'd smiled, John had seen fangs. Once he'd asked Mr. Wormwood if he was a vampire; he'd given a snort of surprise, stared at him for a second, and then retorted, "Don't be ridiculous, vampires don't exist." John didn't bother probing further. The other bits of information he figured out were that Mr. Wormwood was American (probably from Boston, based on his accent), that he was alarmingly intelligent, and also alarmingly paranoid.

"A _month_?! Do you have any idea how difficult that's going to be, while living with him?" He jerked a thumb toward the door, where he was sure Sherlock was still lurking.

"Plenty; I've read your blog. Much as I hate to admit it, the best solution might just be to tell him the truth."

That was certainly not something John would have expected to hear from Mr. Wormwood. "Are-are you serious?"

"Extremely. He's going to try to find out anyway, it might be easier for him to handle coming from you. Though at the same time dangerous for him, since there's no telling how he might react. But you never know, he might be like you."

John didn't doubt his words; if Sherlock found out that monsters-real monsters, not like the Hound he'd hallucinated at Baskerville, but things like dragons, trolls, and werewolves-really existed, and had small communities all over the world nonetheless...he might be able to handle it. Then again, when he'd seen the Hound, the fear he'd felt had been overwhelming for that big brain. Knowing that such horrible things were real might break him. Or worse, he'd try to find and experiment on them. He might even experiment on John, who could see through the spells that kept them hidden, like in that show _Grimm_.

"Ishida would have my head for suggesting that," Mr. Wormwood muttered, partly to himself. "But I really think it's what's best if your friend does poke his nose in deep enough to find out about Fang, or any other part of our world." He gestured to the little dragon, who had curled himself into a ball at the foot of John's bed, kind of like a long, scaly cat. The doctor bristled; Mr. Wormwood was already taking it for granted that he was going to look after it. Oh, sorry, him.

"Couldn't you...erase it from his memory if he does?" Instantly John felt appalled at himself for even having that train of thought.

"Of course not; trying to erase people's memories has been illegal in our culture since 1848. It can cause permanent brain damage."

John wasn't sure if Mr. Wormwood was serious or not; he often made similar statements. So all he did was sigh, and say, "Fine, I'll look after the bloody dragon."

"Thanks, Doc. I'll let you know when it's safe for me to take him back. Oh, and if you need any help or advice, just open the box." Mr. Wormwood went to the open window. Tipping his fedora, he said, "Until then!" before jumping. As John ran to the window and looked out after him, only to see a large figure swooping up towards the moon, he learned something new about Mr. Wormwood: he had wings.

With another sigh of resignation, John shut the window and turned back to the baby dragon.

"Just what am I supposed to do with you?"

Fang blew a wisp of smoke into the air innocently. Then he sat up, and scratched an ear with one hind claw. Since he was so long, this meant he had to fold himself in half as he did so, a sight John couldn't help chuckling at a little bit. Then he remembered Sherlock. Warily, the doctor went to the door, unlocked it, and peered out. To his relief, Sherlock had finally gone back downstairs. Unless he was lurking in a nearby secret passageway, or had climbed onto the roof and was going to try to get in through the window; John wouldn't put either possibility past him.

As he closed the door again, there was a crackling noise from behind him. John gasped in alarm when he saw Fang was quite enthusiastically setting his bedding on fire.

"No! Bad dragon!"

Fully aware of how ridiculous that sounded, John ran to his bed and snatched the dragon away, throwing his blankets to the floor and stamping out the flames. As he did so, Fang snarled, and wriggled furiously. John suddenly felt several hot streaks of pain down his arm, and a thick, sticky wetness soaking through his jumper. Cursing in pain, John dropped Fang to the ground, and went to his medical bag. Part of him noted that the little dragon had scrambled under the bed, but his main attention was focused on the long, bloody scratches from his elbow on down.

The doctor got a bit of peroxide, and dabbed it onto the wounds while sitting at the desk. He hissed as they stung, but watched with a kind of morbid interest as the chemicals made the cuts bubble and froth. Then he grabbed a roll of gauze and began bandaging them, thankful they weren't quite deep enough to require stitches. When that was finally done, he opened the lid of the box. And jumped when a disembodied voice asked, "What is your question?"

"Bloody h_!" John squawked.

"...That's not a question. That's an interjected expletive."

"What are you?!"

The voice said, in an oddly pleased tone, "I'm Irving, your GOI 2000. Technically, I've been bespelled not to answer questions unless they have to do with dragons, but since this is our first meeting, I'll make an exception just this once."

"What's GOI mean?"

"Gatherer Of Information. You know, like the human smartphone, but magical."

John, being a very flexible person, thought this over and accepted it. He'd seen far stranger things from monster society.

"I see. Well, Irving, how do I stop this dragon from setting my blankets on fire again?"


	3. Sherlock Makes an Incorrect Deduction

"Well, for starters you should probably set up a box or something of things that he can burn. Dragons need fire, they need things they can burn. Like having a thing of chew toys for a dog so he won't bite the furniture."

John nodded. "Would anything work?"

"Yeah, anything flammable. Pieces of paper, wood, rocks if you want to give him a challenge, sand-there's a place on Fleet Street where you can buy some spells to protect the furniture and stuff. Owned by a kitsune, very nice lady."

"What does he eat?" The doctor grabbed a pen and paper and began writing out a shopping list. His injured arm stung as he did so, but he ignored it.

"Oh, most dragons will eat just about anything, but they particularly like meat and fish, cooked rare or not at all. And the young ones have a strong appetite for milk."

John groaned; milk. The product he often needed most, and that was least often in their fridge when he wanted it. Of course it would be a dragon's favorite drink. That was how his life worked sometimes.

"Anything else I should know?"

Irving paused for a moment, before answering, "Even though he can't talk, he can understand you."

Time to sort a few things out, then. John laid aside the list, and got down-somewhat painfully-on his knees to look at the dragon, who was still under the bed. "Fang?"

There was a whuffling sound in reply, and the tiny blue head peered out from under the sheet that John hadn't yanked off the mattress. He gently reached out his hand, and after making sure the dragon understood he wasn't a threat, scratched between his ears.

"Sorry I scared you earlier. But I don't want you burning my blankets. I need them. But I'm going to get you some other stuff you can burn as much as you like tomorrow. Is that all right?"

Fang looked up at him, and finally bobbed his head in what John supposed was a nod. He wriggled the rest of the way into the open, and sniffed at his arm, still clad in its bloodstained, torn sleeve. The dragon looked up at him apologetically.

"Believe it or not, I've had worse."

John barely took the time to change into pajamas (after closing the box to give Irving a rest) before turning out the lights and going to bed. Fang was at first on the floor, lying on John's discarded clothes, with a few sheets of newspaper on the floor to prevent a mess. But when John woke up the next day, it was to find that the little dragon had climbed up onto the bed and was now sprawled across his chest. Fang was twitching his legs in his sleep, and the doctor wondered if he was dreaming about chasing imps or something. It was actually rather cute to watch, even though little puffs of smoke were coming from his nostrils and making John worry about another potential fire.

Idly he wondered how dragons breathed fire anyway. Sherlock would probably want to know too, probably want to get a dead body so he could dissect it-

Sherlock!

John would have sat bolt upright, but the dragon twitched and growled when he tried, so he remained there, heart racing. Somehow, in all this excitement, he had actually managed to forget his friend's presence in the flat. He wasn't fool enough to think that Sherlock would let the little incident of last night go, especially since John was determined enough to point a gun at him so he'd stay out of the room. It wouldn't be too surprising if he were lurking outside the door right now, waiting to accost John and demand an explanation. So John spent a few minutes trying to think of one.

Even though Mr. Wormwood was sure he should just tell Sherlock the truth, he wasn't ready to yet. Partly out of concern over whether Sherlock could handle such an overwhelming piece of information, but also for another, more selfish reason. This was one of the few secrets he'd been able to keep to himself for longer than a few weeks; in all the time they'd known each other, Sherlock had never once found out his flatmate could see monsters, and occasionally even made contact with them. John was absurdly proud of himself for being able to keep quiet about it. And if Sherlock found out now, it would mean...well...that he no longer had that secret. Maybe it was petty, but he wanted to see how much longer he could last without telling.

Finally, John began easing Fang off of him so he could get up and shower, before getting the things he needed. The dragon grumbled, but didn't wake up. As an extra precaution, once he was out of the bed John draped the covers over him so only the tip of his snout was in the open. Then he kicked the bloody jumper under the bed, grabbed some fresh clothes, and headed to the door. Sherlock was not right outside the door; no, he was instead waiting right at the top of the stairs, curled up like he'd been there most of the night. He probably had been.

John hesitated, closing the door behind him, and hoping Irving's special concealment spell (which he'd told John about with relish between bits of information about dragons) would remain intact if Sherlock broke in. Then he said, "I'm going to the store after breakfast. Need anything?"

"If you're attempting to avoid discussing why you don't want me in your room, you're doing a very pathetic job."

The doctor didn't even flinch, and started to brush past him. "I'll take that as a no-oh, bloody h_, Sherlock, don't _do_ that!"

Sherlock's hand had wrapped around his ankle, causing him to nearly fall down the stairs. He grabbed the banister to steady himself, ignoring the jolt of pain this gave to his wounded arm, and glared over his shoulder.

"You could have made me break my neck! Let go!"

The offending hand showed no indication of releasing him. "Not until you tell me what's in your room, and why you threatened me with a gun to make me stay out."

"The fact that I threatened you with a gun should make it pretty clear that I don't want you to know." John tried ineffectively to jerk his foot free.

"I could always just go in and try finding out for myself, but it would be easier on us both if you would just tell me straight off what's going on."

John couldn't help a short bark of laughter. "This coming from you?!"

Sherlock demanded, "Just what is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean you have no ground to stand on, Mr. Never-Tells-Me-Anything! I have a right to my privacy, and if you can't understand that-"

John's tirade was suddenly and violently interrupted by his leaning against the banister, and putting too much pressure on his arm. A hiss of pain escaped from between his teeth. Instantly the grip around his ankle was released, and instead Sherlock was grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him to sit down on the step.

"John, are you all right? Where are you hurt?"

"It's nothing," the doctor said, "Just an accident."

Looking unconvinced, Sherlock gently took his arm and began peeling back the sleeve of his pajama jumper (or, as he had derisively christened it, the pajumper). And he stared out of wide gray eyes at the white bandages covering John's arm from wrist to elbow. John noted idly that they needed changing.

"When did this happen?"

"...Last night," John admitted. "But like I said, an accident. No big deal."

Both of them could see the irony in John being the one trying to convince Sherlock that a bad-looking injury was no big deal. But now that his ankle was free, John took the opportunity to step away from his friend and head on downstairs. Much to his relief, Sherlock didn't follow him.

After showering, John got halfway dressed and took another look at the cuts. They'd closed up by now, but he didn't want to risk them opening while he was going about the day. Better keep them bandaged a while longer. And hope Fang didn't scratch him again. He opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out the spare roll of bandages; just as he was about to start winding, the lock clicked, and Sherlock came into the bathroom. John spun around angrily.

"Okay, Sherlock, picking the lock to my bedroom is one thing; this is going too far!"

"You wouldn't have agreed to let me in if I'd knocked. I want to see."

"Since when are you a medical practitioner? Oh, that's right, you're not. And I could have been still undressed!"

"It takes you between six and fifteen seconds to get dressed from the waist down after you finish drying off, which takes at most two minutes, and you usually dress quickly anyway, so you can move on to other things. It has been at least three minutes since you finished showering, so I knew you'd be comparatively decent. All I want is to look. I might stop bugging you if you just let me look."

John tried-and failed-not to be disturbed that Sherlock kept track of how long it took him to get dressed after showering. He sighed in resignation, and held out his arm for inspection. Sherlock ran the tips of his fingers along the deep scratches, calculating how deep they were, their severity (thankfully minimal), and-most importantly-what could have caused them. And he surprised and horrified himself with the first explanation that came to mind.

"You probably shouldn't have fired that therapist after all."

The doctor's eyebrows wrinkled together in a confused frown. "What?"

"Well, if you're doing this to yourself, then you obviously still need professional help."

_Wait a moment. He honestly thinks I did this to myself?!_

In yet another abrupt change of mood, John found himself giggling. For once, Sherlock, had got it wrong.

"You think it's funny?!" Sherlock demanded. "This sort of thing is serious! I don't even understand why you feel the need to do this!"

"It's not-I'm not-I haven't been cutting myself!" John gasped out. "It's like I told you; an accident!"

"An accident leaving long, vertical scars up and down your arm? What did you do, trip and fall on an angry cat? These are not knife wounds, but claw marks. They happened at some point last night, while you were up in your room; there are very few things in there that could cause this level of damage, but you do have a small bear claw ornament that would be more than adequate. Though it does seem rather extreme of you to do so…" Sherlock trailed off. "Is this about Baskerville again? Or more PTSD issues?"

"No, I swear, I didn't do this on purpose. Believe me, it wasn't anything like that."

Sherlock could tell John was telling the truth. He was too honest a man to be able to lie to him for this long. But if that wasn't the solution...what was?

"Fine. Keep your secret for now. But I'll find it out sooner or later, make no mistake of that."

"I know." John focused on bandaging his arm, as a signal that the conversation was over for the present.


	4. How To Raise Your Dragon

After that small fiasco, things went surprisingly well for John when it came to looking after the dragon. He was able to buy the fireproof spells in Fleet Street (the kitsune also tried to give him her number, but he wasn't interested), and then the rest of the items from Tesco. Sherlock (of course) noticed that John had brought home an extra bottle of milk, as well as a large package of raw chicken-giblets included-and raised an eyebrow at him. John just said, "This way we'll run out of milk less quickly," and put the groceries in the fridge. Then he went upstairs to check on Fang, and found him clawing at the window, obviously bored and hungry. Also, to his consternation, John found the charred remains of his jumper from last night across the floor. But he reminded himself it had been ruined anyway.

Despite their rocky beginning, John and Fang got along all right. The dragon was a lot like a cat: give him a saucer of milk and a chicken liver or shoulder or similar piece of meat, and he'd sleep pretty much the whole time John was gone. Leave some things for him to play with, chew on or set on fire, and he'd be happy enough. Of course, there were still a few mishaps here and there-Fang figured out how to open the window and got out onto the roof one evening while John and Sherlock were on a case, and ate two pigeons and a squirrel. John came back to find him sprawled on his pillow, surrounded by feathers and a fluffy tail. The dragon's ears drooped when John scolded him, and he lashed the air with his tail in a way that seemed to say, in a voice not unlike that of Sherlock, "Well, what did you expect me to do? I'm bored!" The next day John bought some extra toys, and even a kind of fancy gold bracelet for Fang to guard (surprisingly, the dragon took little interest in the latter, except to gnaw).

John didn't know much about Fang; Mr. Wormwood had told him as little as possible, in case he got captured and interrogated. But he did know that the little dragon and his mother had been the pampered pets of a mob boss somewhere in America; recently the boss had been killed by a rival gang, and Fang had been the only witness to the incident. So now he had to be protected until all the gang were rounded up, so he could testify against them. Yes, that's correct: in a monster court of law, they could use a nonspeaking dragon as a witness. John didn't know how, but suspected some kind of spell or mind-reader or something.

As weeks past, Fang began to grow a little bigger. He was still small enough that John could pick him up, but now his front and back dangled further to the floor if held around the middle, and was a bit heavier. John began considering the possibility of just wearing him around his neck like a big blue scarf. Thinking of that made him think of Sherlock, and his stomach lurched. The detective had obviously been hurt by John's refusal to say what had happened to his arm, or give any explanation for his abnormal behavior, even though he was more often than not guilty of the same thing. After the bathroom incident, he'd begun sulking, and hardly spoke to John at all, whether or not he was in the room. They still went on cases together, but Sherlock only told him the bare minimum of information, and often would just run off by himself, even if it might be easier to have an assistant. He even began making his own tea, which tempted John more than anything else to just explain what was wrong. But he remained quiet.

Then, in early April, Sherlock went out for the whole day, only telling John that he probably wouldn't be back until tomorrow. And John decided, in celebration, to bring Fang downstairs. The little dragon was tremendously excited to be in this new environment; he leaped around, sniffing at everything, chasing his tail, making even more of a mess than usual. John worked some of the energy out of him by tossing balls of crumpled newspaper into the air and having Fang try to flame them before they hit the ground. Since they did this in the kitchen, and Sherlock was always doing things in there that caught fire or blew up, he might not notice the extra smoky smell. Besides, John made sure to sweep up the ashes afterwards and wash them down the sink.

Towards evening, John was getting hungry, so he made a small dish of risotto. He and Fang shared it, along with a mug of tea and a small saucer of milk (the latter was only for the dragon). Then they retired to the living room, where John put on a James Bond movie. Fang was interested for a while, but eventually yawned, and curd up on John's chest while he stretched out. The doctor didn't complain; by now he'd become resigned to having Fang sleeping on him at night. He actually enjoyed the affection, and there was the added benefit of Fang not having fur to shed on him. He absentmindedly scratched the dragon's ears, massaging them between his fingers. Fang whuffled with pleasure, and his blue eyes drooped as his head flopped down, tucked against John's good shoulder. Watching the dozy dragon made John's eyelids start to get heavy too, and before he knew it, he was snoring away.

He didn't hear the thumping of footsteps come up the stairs a couple of hours later. He didn't hear the door open, or the familiar deep voice start to say, "John, I'm home-" And he most definitely didn't hear the stunned silence as Sherlock Holmes took a good, long look at the two sleeping forms on the sofa.


	5. Truth Will Out

Sherlock decided, after he forcibly stopped his brief moment of irrational panic, that there were four possible explanations for what he was seeing.

_1. I am hallucinating, perhaps as a result of a drug similar to the one used in the Baskerville incident, or else my lack of sleep has finally caught up with me._

_2. John is playing a very cruel joke on me._

_3. I have finally lost my mind, as so many people have said might happen one day, possibly resulting in or coinciding with option 1._

_4. There is a dragon sleeping on John's chest._

It had certainly occurred to Sherlock, after ruling out the possibility that John was depressed enough to start cutting himself, that his friend was keeping an animal of some kind in his room. The fact that he was buying extra milk, not to mention a large packet of raw chicken, was very incriminating evidence. But why the secrecy? If he wanted a pet, he didn't need to hide it from Sherlock. Unless it was supposed to be a gift for him (and ridiculous as it was, he felt a small spark of pleasure at the idea)...but John would know better than to keep it in the flat, because the detective would inevitably see evidence of its presence, giving the game away. Besides, there were no coming occasions that would constitute giving him a present. And there had been genuine fear in John's eyes when pointing the gun at him; he wouldn't be that afraid if the animal had been a simple gift.

The best way, Sherlock decided, to eliminate at least two of the explanations was to touch the dragon. So he removed the coat and scarf which had become his trademark clothing, letting them drop to the floor, and stepped closer to the sofa. As he did, he noted how comfortable John seemed to have the...creature there; one hand was resting on its head, the other had become snugly tucked around its back lower down. So at least he wasn't being threatened by it.

He could probably eliminate option 2 right off; John was many things, but cruel had never been one of them, and he wasn't the sort to really play jokes anyway. Sherlock wondered about an option 5: someone else playing a joke, but he'd seen no evidence that anyone had come here while he was gone, and now there was no more time to think about it, because he was on his knees in front of John, and reaching out a tentative hand (that was not shaking in the least) and feeling warm scales beneath his palm, _bloody h__ there was a dragon sleeping on John's chest, a real live dragon whose snout was twitching, and whose eyes were flicking open, and who was looking up at him and making a horrible noise in the back of its throat as it lurched up onto its stubby little legs and thrust its jaws at him-

-and began enthusiastically to lick his face.

_Well, at least now I'm definitely sure that this is real NO GET OFF ME YOU STUPID CREATURE!_

Sherlock tried to push the dragon away; it only scrabbled more at his chest with its tiny claws, trying to dampen as much of his face as possible in a sticky blessing. He stumbled back, trying to dislodge the dragon, but ended up tripping and landing gracelessly on his back, with it still digging its claws into his shirt and washing his face. And then there was a gasp. John had woken up.

* * *

Of all the scenarios in which Sherlock could have found out about Fang, John had never thought to see this one. He sat up, staring wide-eyed at his friend. Sherlock looked back at him, still trying to keep the dragon off as he got into a position where he could at least be seated upright; his pupils were extremely dilated, and though he tried to act calm, he was obviously rattled.

"Oh, good, you're awake. Would you mind getting your beast off me?"

The doctor slowly swung his legs down, sat up, and leaned forward, gently grabbing Fang around the middle and pulling him away. The dragon whined in protest, but John clutched him tightly, and murmured, "Let him alone for now." Fang sighed, and draped himself across John's knees. John looked down, stroking him, delaying the moment he'd have to look up at Sherlock and spill.

Sherlock finally said, "Now you really have to explain."

John swallowed, and looked up. "I think he did that because he likes you, for some strange reason. He's never been that enthusiastic to see me; you should be honored."

The detective's eyes rolled dramatically. "I am not referring to its' affectionate nature. I am referring to the fact that a dragon is in our flat at all. Why? How did this happen? Most importantly, why were you trying to keep it from me?" He scooted forward, taking a closer look at the dragon's claws. "I do see that you were telling the truth about not cutting yourself, unless you purposely allowed it to use you as a scratching post."

"It's a him. His name is Fang."

"Oh, whatever! Just answer me."

"I-I was asked to look after him for a little while. An old contact of mine brought him over that one night. And I have my reasons."

"What are they?"

Evidently there was going to be no getting away from this. John stroked Fang's scales for reassurance as he spoke again.

"It was my secret. Something you didn't know about, and probably wouldn't have believed, even if I told you. Kind of a guilty pleasure for me."

Sherlock looked at him unreadably for a second, and then nodded. "All right. That's one reason. What are the others?"

"There's pretty much only one other. I remembered what it was like for you at Baskerville, when you saw something that shouldn't exist…" John looked down again.

"And what?" Sherlock demanded. "You weren't sure I could handle it a second time?"

"Yes, I wasn't sure you could handle it! Or I figured there was no need to make you try to handle it! There are a lot more things than dragons in the world, and if you knew about-"

He stopped when he heard a very loud, definite creak from upstairs. They looked at each other, before turning to see a familiar (to John and Fang, anyway), trench coated, fedora-wearing figure coming down.

"Am I interrupting something?" asked Mr. Wormwood innocently.


	6. Mr Wormwood Unmasked

Sherlock was on his feet in a second.

"Who are you?!"

"It's okay, he's the one who brought Fang here. He's my contact with that world."

"Basically, I'm the one who told him he wasn't going crazy with all the strange people he kept seeing," Mr. Wormwood said, getting to the bottom of the stairs. He flinched at the electric lights, and pushed his dark glasses further up onto his nose. As he did so, John suddenly got a good look at his hands for the first time. And wondered why he hadn't thought before to include them on his list of things that made him not human.

Subconsciously, he must have thought Mr. Wormwood had on large gray gloves or something. But they were actually his hands: stony gray, covered in a short layer of fur, and tipped at the edges with very sharp-looking claws. And then John noticed Mr. Wormwood's feet, which were bare under the trench coat: also gray and clawed. In previous meetings, he had at least appeared to be wearing big black shoes. One way or another, he had a feeling they were going to finally see what he looked like tonight.

"I've come to collect Fang; we rounded up the mob, so it should be safe. I see he lick-I mean, _likes_ you." He grinned at Sherlock, fangs glinting.

The detective came closer, scanning their visitor intently. The clothes were rather old, second-hand in fact, but not tattered at all; obviously he wasn't given to vanity, or too proud to accept hand-me-downs. The brands were unfamiliar to him; probably some American companies he'd never heard of, or had deleted because of irrelevance. He had very large, thick claws on his hands and feet; obviously a natural predator. Stains on the soles of his feet, and the knees of the coat; he'd been kneeling on a rooftop. But these were comparatively unimportant details. He needed to know more, needed to see all of who-or what-he was dealing with.

"Why the disguise?"

"For secrecy and concealment. I don't really need it out there most of the time, but I don't want to freak out Doc."

"I want to see your face. And whatever else you might be hiding."

Mr. Wormwood took a step back towards the stairs, keeping his eyes on both men. "You sure, Mr. Holmes? You've already had one big shock tonight; I don't want to push you."

Sherlock's eyes blazed. "Let. Me. See."

The other man sighed. "Okay, okay. No need to get all crabby. Though I must warn you, if you're not like John, you won't see anything unusual unless I also take the spell out of my pants pocket."

Before Sherlock could ask what he meant, he unbuttoned his coat, and tossed it aside, before also removing the hat. John gently shoved Fang off his lap, and got up, turning off all the lights save the desk lamp. Mr. Wormwood nodded a thank you, before pulling off the dark glasses. Then he opened his eyes wide, and allowed Sherlock and John to see that whatever he was, he was definitely not human.

In some ways, Mr. Wormwood looked human enough. His face was shaped like a human's, with eyes, nose, mouth and ears in all the correct places. He also had very scruffy light brown hair, and a shaggy goatee-mustache combo that concealed a rather pointed chin. Mr. Wormwood was wearing a plain white button-down shirt with what Sherlock considered to be a very atrocious plaid necktie, and black work pants that were a little short in the ankles. But his skin was covered in short gray fur; his ears were rather big and pointed; his eyes were larger than the average humans, and glowed bright red in the darkened room; and as they stared at him, Mr. Wormwood brought into view a pair of enormous batlike wings, and a tail. After a few seconds of letting them gape at him, he spread his arms in a dramatic gesture, and said, "Ta-dah!"

"What are you?" Sherlock asked when he finally found his voice.

"I'm a gargoyle. Tristan Wormwood, private detective, at your service." The gargoyle dipped his head slightly.

"You're a detective?" John blinked in surprise.

"Well, yeah. We monsters need them just the same as humans. And semi-humans."

"What do you mean, semi-humans?"

"It's like this." Mr. Wormwood leaned back against the wall, folding his wings again. "The doc-and, evidently, you-are what we call hawages (pronounced Huh-Waa-Jez). It's kind of an acronym for Humans With Good Eyesight, and means that many centuries ago, one of your ancestors, maybe even two, were monsters of some kind. However, the rest of them were humans, so the blood got diluted enough over time that for all intents and purposes, you are human. Except that there's enough monster in you that you can see through spells that protect us from humans, and recognize us, and stuff like that. I have a pamphlet somewhere that explains more-hold on a sec." He caught the trench coat with one foot, and dragged it up to him, before digging through the pockets. "Ah, here we are." He held up a brochure entitled, A_ Newly-Realized Hawage's Introductory Guide to Monster Kind._

Sherlock accepted the brochure, but set it aside for the moment. Instead he stepped closer to Mr. Wormwood. The gargoyle instantly backed away warily, sliding along the wall.

"I just want to verify for myself that I am not hallucinating," Sherlock reassured him. He was less alarmed now, more intrigued. This was all quite exciting: a whole world had been lying at his fingertips, and he hadn't even known about it! It was a lot to take in, but he had always been good at adapting to new knowledge. Even hearing that he wasn't completely human didn't faze him; he'd been told that all his life, even if people didn't mean it quite the same way.

Mr. Wormwood slowly extended his left wing, and allowed the detective to touch it. He marveled at the power in something that looked so frail, on a creature that was so big. Sherlock pulled his magnifying glass out of his pocket, and took a closer look. There was real fur, skin and bone here. Definitely not a fake.

After a few minutes, Mr. Wormwood pulled his wing against his back again. "Satisfied?"

"Not by a long shot. I want to know more."

The gargoyle sighed. "Somehow I'm not surprised. You can just read the brochure, it explains better than me."

John said, "I need a drink. Either of you want anything?"

"Tea," Sherlock requested as his friend went to the kitchen.

"Just a glass of water would be good, thanks." At Sherlock's questioning glance, the gargoyle said, "Gargoyles can't drink alcohol. Our bodies violently reject it, puke it all up. Even worse than yours when you get sloshed."

"Really? Fascinating." Sherlock flopped down into his chair (upon which Fang climbed up into his lap-he looked down in surprise, but did not attempt to dislodge him), and watched as Mr. Wormwood sat down on the sofa. "Any other health issues I should know about?"

"Well, we're also deathly allergic to mint. It kind of makes our blood freeze. And if you dare try to feed me any, or in any way, shape or form try to introduce mint to my bloodstream to study the effects, I shall personally tear you limb from limb." He gave Sherlock a benevolent smile.

After a moment's awkward silence, Mr. Wormwood asked, "So, what can you deduce about me? I'm sure you've found a few things by now, since you've been staring at me so long."

Sherlock said in an offhanded fashion, "Other than your being ambidextrous but using the left hand a bit more, originally from Massachusetts, somewhere close by Boston, having a girlfriend but not actually living with her, and suffering from rather strong paranoia, nothing of real interest."

Without missing a beat, the gargoyle said, "The calluses on my claws, especially prominent on the left one, accent, neatly tied tie (she's my fiancee, actually) that contrasts with the state of the rest of my clothes, and refusal to look away from or turn my back on either you or the doc, and generally staying in such a position that I'll be ready to defend myself if attacked. Correct?"

Sherlock gaped; he wasn't used to someone besides Mycroft being able to know how he made his deductions before he told them. The gargoyle grinned at him.

"I'm a detective too; I have some skill in observation and deduction."

"All right then, tell me what you know about me," Sherlock challenged.

"Well, I could say you're a violinist, or that you're a former junkie-not the brightest idea, but you know that already, or that lately you've been doing experiments with potassium chloride-which is also pretty stupid, since you're playing with the type used in lethal injections, and the doc will have a conniption when he finds out-but I get the feeling you'd be even more impressed if I could tell you something you wouldn't expect people to know."

Sherlock was already impressed, not that he'd admit it, but he just looked at Mr. Wormwood solemnly. John came out with a mug of tea and glass of water, which he handed to the respective people who'd requested them. Mr. Wormwood was the only one who bothered to say "Thank you."

John nodded, and went back into the kitchen to get his own cup; he'd decided to forgo alcohol in favor of the far healthier tea. And as Sherlock took a sip, Mr. Wormwood said, "I can tell that you love Dr. Watson."

Sherlock choked on his tea. Spluttering and coughing, he doubled over for a second, trying to get himself back under control. To his surprise, he found the glass of water John had given the gargoyle being offered to him; he took a sip, then sat up and declared, "I do not!"

"I don't mean romantically. I just mean that you would do anything to protect him, and probably care about him more than anyone else in the world."

The detective snorted. "Where on earth did you get such a ridiculous conclusion?"

"Because when you saw me for the first time, you may not have noticed, but you stepped slightly to your left, getting between me and the doc; your subconscious felt that I might be a threat, so you were getting in such a position that if I attacked, you would get hurt before he did. You're not so naturally self-sacrificing to do that for just anybody. And you have saved his life on multiple occasions, he puts up with all the junk you put him through, he follows and helps you almost unconditionally. Conclusion: you love him."

Mr. Wormwood grinned, daring him to deny it. Just then, John came in with his own tea. He sat down in his chair across from Sherlock, and frowned at his friend's still-flushed face.

"You okay?"

"Just choked a bit. I'm fine." Sherlock drank some of the tea quickly.

"Anything else you'd like to know before I have to take Fang home?" asked Mr. Wormwood.

"How did you and John meet in the first place?"

"That's a rather interesting story, actually…"


	7. Explanations and Apologies

Mr. Wormwood recounted the night that he and John had met; it had been in Afghanistan, while John was at war, and the gargoyle had been on a case. He'd accidentally wound up nearby an army base one night, and while trying to slink away, saw a British soldier, who'd separated from his company and gone farther out in the desert, being attacked by a young manticore. And incredibly, he was able to kill it, even though as far as the gargoyle could smell, he was 100% human (Sherlock internally glowed with pride in his doctor's courage and skills). Intrigued, Mr. Wormwood came closer, and was horrified that the man then started to turn the gun on himself. He called out, "You really don't want to do that."

The man jumped, and suddenly the gargoyle in the trench coat found himself the target of the gun.

"Who are you?!" the soldier demanded. And then, with a tinge of desperation to his voice, "Did you see that?"

"You mean the manticore you just killed? Yeah."

"The what?"

"That's what that creature is called. A manticore. Looks like a lion with the head of a man and a scorpion's tail that can shoot poison barbs, yes?"

"...Yes. So you're saying it's...real?"

"Yeah, that manticore was very real. And if it had succeeded in its attempt to devour you, you would no longer be."

He was overcome by a wave of relief, and slowly (but still suspicious of the figure in the coat and fedora, especially out in the desert) lowered his gun.

"Who are you?" he asked again.

The other figure thought for a moment, and then said, "Mr. Wormwood will do for now. I come in peace."

"Captain Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers."

"It's a pleasure."

There had been a small reprieve from the fighting during that time, so Mr. Wormwood and John were able to get acquainted, and talk about things. John had seen one or two monsters before in his lifetime-fae, who looked like humans except usually smaller and with pointed ears; a giant four-armed man standing in line at a delicatessen; Reapers who showed up at the sides of some of the people he hadn't been able to save, and sliced them with a sickle at the point when they died, leaving no mark. But he usually dismissed them as imagination or hallucinations; this was the first time one had ever actually attacked him. He'd been sure that he had finally gone mad, and wanted to end the problem permanently, because he worried he had just accidentally killed something-or someone. So by showing up when he did, and explaining that the things he saw when often no one else did really were there, Mr. Wormwood had saved his life.

"I think Harry used to see them too, and that's why she drinks so much. I tried to tell her about it after I found out, but-well." John sighed.

Mr. Wormwood gave him a sympathetic look, then turned back to Sherlock. "Have you ever seen anything strange like that before?"

The detective shrugged. "If I did, I probably deleted it. Or it's buried deeply enough that I can't bring it to mind at the moment. Except-wait a moment. If I'm a hawage, does that mean my brother is too?"

"It generally runs in families, so yes. I've never heard of it being recessive."

"D_!" Sherlock growled. The other two looked at him in surprise, and he growled, "Once when I was six, I thought I saw Mycroft out in the yard talking to a man who seemed to be partly tree. But when I went out to look, he'd vanished, and Mycroft told me I'd just been imagining things! He knew about this side of the world this whole time, and he didn't tell me!" The lanky man scowled at this latest discovered injustice.

"I hear you; I've got an older brother too. And two older sisters-don't get me started on what life was like when they were teenagers." Mr. Wormwood shuddered at the memory.

They kept talking late into the night. At some point, John fell asleep, leaning his head against the back of his chair. Neither detective noticed at first; they were too busily engrossed in a sea of questions, descriptions and explanations. Despite his earlier claim, the gargoyle seemed to be in no hurry to collect Fang; like Sherlock, he loved an audience. He told the taller man about the MCPD, or Monster Control Police Department, whose job it was to make sure monsterkind was never revealed to humans; this sometimes involved big cover-ups, misdirection, disguising, and spells-similar to any human government. He told him about some of his old cases, and Sherlock had fun figuring them out before he told him the solution. And he answered as many of Sherlock's questions about monsters as he could.

"How strong are gargoyles?" asked Sherlock, eyeing Mr. Wormwood's wiry arms.

"A lot stronger than you, I know that."

"I don't believe it."

A gleam came to the gargoyle's red eyes. "Oh, no? Let me show you. Give me your hand."

Without a moment's hesitation, Sherlock held out his right hand, his pale skin even whiter than usual when compared to the gray of his companion.

"Now squeeze, hard as you can."

Sherlock did so, for ten seconds.

"Okay, my turn." Mr. Wormwood squeezed back. Three seconds later, he had mercy and let go, and Sherlock Holmes, white-faced and wincing profusely, began trying to massage his hand back together. It felt like all his bones had been simultaneously crushed.

"I did warn you," said the gargoyle with a grin. "You should know that lack of bulk doesn't mean lack of strength."

"I was just curious."

"Well, at least you know now never to challenge me to a wrestling match."

At nearly two a.m. Mr. Wormwood looked at his watch and groaned.

"Mr. Ishida's going to be really mad; I need to take the little guy and get back home. The trial's in two days."

Sherlock looked down at Fang, who was asleep on his lap, and who he'd been absentmindedly stroking. "That's too bad. I can tell John is fond of him."

"Yeah, he's sweet." Mr. Wormwood stood up, and stretched, turning his head from side to side to get the crick out of it. "However, since his old owner, Arlo 'Meathead' Pasquale died without any next of kin, there's always the possibility that I could assign you two ownership of him. Since you're both not quite human, and Doc at least has promised to keep this a secret, I doubt my superiors would object."

"We'll consider it," John murmured, having become at least partially awake.

"Okay, good." Mr. Wormwood held out his arms for the dragon. Sherlock gingerly lifted Fang; the creature dug his claws into his pant legs in protest, and whimpered. But eventually he was placed in the detective's arms. He looked at Sherlock strangely.

"Mr. Holmes, I really think one of your ancestors must have been a dragon or something." He turned to John. "Care to say goodbye?"

John stood up with an amused smile, and gently scratched Fang behind the ears.

"Bye, buddy. It's been nice having you around."

Fang made a pleased growling noise, and then his tongue snaked out across the doctor's hand. John smiled, turning his hand and rubbing at a spot right under the dragon's chin. Fang's blue eyes closed halfway, and his entire body went limp like a rag doll. When he moved his hand away, Mr. Wormwood retrieved his disguise and pulled it on, winding Fang around his neck just like John had considered doing.

"Dunno when I'll see either of you again, but I enjoyed it. I'll bring him back if I'm allowed. Oh, and I should warn you: now that you know monsters are real, word is probably going to get out, and sooner or later you might have some more...interesting clients show up now and then. The type you can't write about in your blog, or the MCPD'll be on you like a ton of bricks."

"We wouldn't dream of it," John promised.

"Good." Mr. Wormwood put on his sunglasses, and slipped back up the stairs to John's room. The two men followed, in time to see him fly out the window.

When he shut the window again, John looked sideways at Sherlock, in a semi-ashamed manner.

"Sorry I didn't think you could handle it. I should have known better."

The detective shrugged. "It was a logical conclusion, based on a past moment when you'd seen me experience something out of the ordinary. Nothing to be ashamed of."

"Still sorry that my secrecy upset you."

Sherlock grinned impishly. "Usually this sort of conversation has us in reverse roles."

"If it happens at all." John nodded, and then got a grin of his own. "...So, Mr. Wormwood deduced that you love me."

The grin was wiped from Sherlock's face in an instant. "You're supposed to be the one who thinks it beneath him to eavesdrop on a conversation unless I need you to."

"Guess you must be rubbing off on me," John chuckled.

"Oh, shut up." Sherlock stalked out of his friend's room.

And, for the most part, their life didn't change all that much. But about a week later, Fang was returned to them, and then a monster showed up with a case.


	8. The Icemen Cometh

**Dear Readers: I've made a small change. Mr. Wormwood brings Fang back while the client is there with the case. I hope that doesn't affect how much you enjoy the story. Assuming you are enjoying it. Let me know if you're confused about anything.**

Literally, the ice demon sitting in the chair facing Sherlock, who was pacing back and forth in front of him, and John, who sat in his chair, was holding a large, electric blue, leather suitcase with a combination lock. But at the moment, the two men were more interested in observing the demon. He was of medium build, nearly transparent, with blue-white hair, and pale eyes not unlike those of Sherlock; as soon as he sat down, a thick layer of frost covered the chair, and began steadily creeping across the floor as he talked. Sherlock also saw that he had eaten a large jelly doughnut before coming here, that he didn't like frosting (or at least didn't like the frosting on the doughnut), was a widower, but had just recently started seeing someone new, and was very nervous about whatever it was that he needed help with. He introduced himself as Fred Nevar, and then said, "I need your help opening this suitcase."

Sherlock looked rather disappointed that his first case with a monster sounded so boring. He examined the suitcase, which was tucked snugly into Mr. Nevar's lap, and finally said, "Do you not know the combination?"

"No; my uncle died before we could figure it out. And if I get it wrong, then it will explode."

That definitely got their attention. The doctor said, "I think you'd better start at the beginning, sir."

Mr. Nevar cleared his throat, and began, "My uncle was a member of a club for monsters here in London, on Crawford Street. It's called the Yokai Club, and one of the rules of membership is that every week, they need to bring a special item. Something exotic, that no one else could possibly have. Then they have a very elaborate card game, with the objects as white elephant prizes for the winners."

"That sounds stupid-ow!" Sherlock rubbed his shin where John had kicked it. "It is!" he protested, looking down at the glaring doctor.

"_Timing_, Sherlock!" his friend hissed.

The detective just made a face at him, and nodded to the demon. "Continue."

"Well, last week Uncle Genty came to visit, very excited, carrying this suitcase. He said he'd won it during the card game from his friend Mr. Hellman, and that it had something very important inside. But he said Mr. Hellman, in a fit of pique, had refused to give him the combination. I asked why, and he told me that Mr. Hellman had been trying to get the case to his other friend the whole game, and when Uncle Genty ended up winning it, he tried to buy it back. But my uncle refused, so he said fine, I won't tell you how to open it. He said fine, I'll figure it out myself, and then Mr. Hellman said Good luck with that, if you get it wrong or try to break the lock or the case it'll explode. So at first he thought he was out of luck. And then he thought of me, how I love a challenge, and decided we'd try to open it together. So we were going to find a mage or someone who could open it...but then, out of the blue, my uncle just died. It looked like his heart stopped, and he couldn't be resuscitated. I suspect Mr. Hellman or the man he planned to give the case to, or even both of them working together, had him killed, but I can't prove it. This suitcase was left to me in his will, and ever since I got it, I've been worried someone else will try to kill me. Then I found out about you, Mr. Holmes, and hoped maybe you could help me open this and find out what's inside that's so important."

Well, Mr. Nevar was obviously not a born storyteller. And probably not too bright either; then again, almost nobody else was, in the detective's experience. But he had given a good hunk of information to begin with. Sherlock flopped down in his chair to process it.

"Why haven't you gone to the police?" asked John. Sherlock rolled his eyes the tiniest bit; surely it was obvious that he was worried whatever was in the case was illegal contraband of some kind, and hoped to keep it for himself. But as if reading his thoughts, the doctor glanced at him in a way that said, _I want to hear what he has to say, so keep your big mouth shut._

Mr. Nevar squirmed a bit uncomfortably, confirming Sherlock's suspicions. "Like I said, I heard about you two. If you can figure it out, there's no need to get them involved."

"Even though your uncle was apparently murdered?" Sherlock asked.

"Well, you can figure that out for certain, right?"

"Of course I can," the detective snorted derisively. Did the ice demon dare to doubt him? "How long has it been since his death?"

"Three days. He lived alone, so no one's been in the house, except me and some other relatives."

"And you didn't-" Sherlock leaped up, irritated that he hadn't been summoned sooner. The crime scene was no longer fresh, curse it all!

"I'm sorry, I-" Whatever trivial thing the demon was about to say was interrupted by the door of the flat opening, and a tall man wielding an umbrella entering.

"Hello, brother mine," Mycroft purred. He didn't so much as raise an eyebrow at the sight of the pale man covering their spare chair in frost.

"Go away," Sherlock growled, "we're busy."

Ignoring him, as usual, the politician pointed at the suitcase. "I'll take that, if you don't mind."

"What?" Nevar demanded, clutching it to him protectively. "Who are you?!"

"That is none of your concern. What is your concern is that the item inside that case is official government property, and must not be in the hands of the general aiEEE!"

The last phrase was probably not intentional. But even an icy, formal politician will have a hard time keeping his composure if a small dragon suddenly creeps up behind him and sinks his fangs into his ankle when he is least expecting it.

A few seconds later Mr. Wormwood (no longer wearing the trench coat or fedora, but still wearing the sunglasses) thumped down the stairs from John's room, looking a tad anxious.

"What happened? Did someone step on a cat down here?"

"Don't you ever use the front door?" John managed to ask through his giggles.

"Where's the fun in that?"

Fang had by now released Mycroft's ankle and happily bounded over to Sherlock and John, leaping on first one, then the other, climbing all over them and washing their faces in greeting, like some bizarre combination of cat and dog. Sherlock looked over at the gargoyle with a wide smirk.

"Fang introduced himself to my brother."

Mycroft was crouched down on the floor, trouser leg rolled up, dabbing at the now-bloody area with a handkerchief. For once he looked quite undignified, and you didn't have to be a genius to see that this embarrassed him greatly. He glared up at the boys.

"You should keep that beast under control!"

Fang whined in protest at his words; Sherlock gave him a reassuring scratch behind the ears. John, having pity on the elder Holmes, said, "That's nothing; you should see what he did to my arm when we first met."

Mycroft did not appear to be comforted.

"Um, should I come back later?" asked Nevar, starting to edge out of his seat.

"No!" both Holmes boys cried at once. They glared at each other challengingly.

"I got him first," said Sherlock, fending off Fang, who was now trying to clean his ear.

"He's carrying government property that was stolen a week ago by one Dorian Hellman, an ambassador for the monster government, who has since turned out to be a double agent. It is rightfully mine."

"No fair! I'm going to figure it out on my own, back off!"

Without warning Mr. Wormwood, rolling his eyes behind their shaded glasses, crossed the room in three strides, and snatched the case out of Nevar's hands.

"_I'll_ take it," he said. With that, he looked down at the combination lock, and cocking his head to the side, began spinning the dial between his left thumb and pointer claw.

For a moment all four men were too busy being frozen in horror to do anything. Then they were leaping up, starting forward, yelling things like "No!" and "Stop!" But Mr. Wormwood stepped out of reach, continuing to turn the dial, and Nevar warned, "He's not allowed to stop now; that'll make it explode!"

So, much to Sherlock and Mycroft's frustration, they were forced to stand there and watch as the gargoyle figured out the combination, praying earnestly that he would get it right (not that either would admit it, as they tried to avoid any and all activities associated with a deity). They all watched with anxious eyes as Mr. Wormwood spun the dial first one way, then another, waiting patiently until the tumblers clicked. Finally, with a pleased smile, he removed the lock. Everyone sighed in relief. Mycroft stepped forward.

"Well done. I'll take charge of it now-"

"Oh, no you don't," Mr. Wormwood growled, backing away again. "I want to see what's so important."

Mycroft's eyes grew cold, and he put on the facial expression that sent most mortals begging for mercy and to tell him everything they knew. The gargoyle just flipped back the strap of the suitcase, and unclasped it. And pulled out a rather large, golden egg.

I'm not talking about the type in _Jack and the Beanstalk_. I mean a large, golden-shelled, glowing egg. Glowing so brightly that Mr. Wormwood had to push his glasses all the way up the bridge of his nose to protect his nocturnal eyes from it. The egg was somewhat smaller than that of an ostrich, but still big enough that the gargoyle had to drop the suitcase and hold it in both claws. The other men edged closer, staring in awe.

"My gosh," whispered Nevar, "Is that what I think it is?"

"If what you think is that this is a phoenix egg, then yes, that's what it is. Don't come any closer; it can't be near any cold temperatures."

John shot him a disbelieving look. "Are you saying the phoenix is real too?"

"Why shouldn't it be?" Sherlock murmured, "Just about everything else is."

"Not vampires or zombies. They don't exist," said Mr. Wormwood. Seeing the suppressed eagerness in the face of his fellow detective, he held out the egg to him. Sherlock gently laid his fingers on the shell-and jerked them back in surprise.

"It's hot," he said, shaking them and blowing a little.

"Oh. Sorry. I've got a higher tolerance for heat. Hold on, these should help." Mr. Wormwood laid the egg back in the open suitcase, and dug around in his coat pockets. Finally he produced a pair of golden bracelets. "Special charms that'll protect you from high temperatures. My assistant made them."

Sherlock did not appear enthusiastic about the prospect of wearing girly jewelry; but his curiosity outranked his dignity, so he slid them onto his wrists, and then knelt down, touching the egg. It was still very warm to the touch, but it had become more tolerable somehow. His pale eyes were filled with wonder as he brushed his fingertips over it, cataloging and assessing every part, comparing it with other eggs he had seen and touched before, storing the information in the part of his mind palace that he had christened "The Monster Wing." It was definitely much larger than any he had ever seen before, and had a most peculiar smell that reminded him of fresh, hot curry. He turned it over, and found something up in the narrower end: a tiny, nearly invisible hole. Just the right size for a hypodermic needle.

The detective glared up at his brother. "What have you been doing to this creature?"

"_I_ haven't been doing anything," Mycroft retorted.

"Well, what have you hired other people to do?"

"It wasn't just me. It's a project I and some others have decided to authorize. It's for the good of both our cultures, and should prove to be very beneficial in the future."

Mr. Wormwood crouched down too, and took one sniff of the egg before bristling, and leaping up with a small snarl.

"You've been letting people inject it with fireflower juice?! Just how much of an utter _moron_ are you?!"


	9. The Consequences of Playing God

**Author's Note: Flori are one of the seven species of fae, and have power over plants, being able to grow them just about anywhere, manipulate them; they can also absorb and generate sunlight, which is pretty awesome. And let's say just for argument's sake that even though it's been three days, the ice demon's uncle hasn't been buried yet.**

* * *

Unbeknownst to the gargoyle, he had endeared himself to Sherlock forever by having the guts to refer to Mycroft as a moron. He watched with delight as his older brother turned a lovely shade of fuchsia, and seemed about to say something scorching. But John interrupted by asking, "What's fireflower juice?"

"Really, John, haven't you looked at the brochure at all?" Sherlock lazily gestured to where it lay on the coffee table. "There's an explanation for anything monster related in it, if you just think of it."

John got up and retrieved the brochure, flipping it open. Sure enough, he found that it said, in large fiery letters across the top of the paper, _Fireflower-A Burning Error_.

He read on, D_uring the 1960's, Flori scientists created a new type of plant called fireflower. The juice, when absorbed into the bloodstream, stimulates your amygdala and pituitary gland, causing you to become very aggressive, and especially directs your anger towards anything or anyone that has recently displeased you. It also makes you somewhat physically stronger, or at least increases your adrenaline reserves, so that it becomes very difficult to keep you under control; if you have supernatural powers of some kind, getting on your bad side during that time is absolute suicide. The monster government attempted to use fireflower extract to create super soldiers (whenever a government does that, something bad is about to happen) because we-that is, the monsters-were at war with South America at the time._

_However, rather than enemy soldiers, a number of ex-spouses, used-car salesmen, and the like were sudden victims of the wrath of numerous gargoyles, trolls, werewolves, etc. who had been injected with the juice and then set free towards the battle lines. The government had set up a few squadrons here and there that were supposed to keep the people focused on the goal of fighting enemy soldiers, and had tried to use only people who were extremely patriotic and had expressed extreme animosity towards the opposite side, but they were unable to successfully brainwash them beforehand to only attack the soldiers, and they underestimated their desire for vengeance on those who had previously wronged them. They managed to sneak away, and attack the people they were most angry at. After that little fiasco ended, fireflower has since become illegal to create or sell, and those responsible for creating it in the first place have been put into special protection programs so that the enraged families of those who were killed won't find and tear them limb from limb._

_Thus we see another example of what happens when stupid people run the country, and dabble in things they shouldn't be dabbling in._

John got the feeling that Mr. Wormwood had written, or at least heavily editorialized, this brochure. As he wordlessly handed it to Sherlock to read for himself, he looked up at Mycroft and thought-if this was what they'd been injecting the phoenix with, based on what he knew about phoenixes (how do you pluralize phoenix? Phoenixes? Phoenices? Phoenicians?), he had to agree with Mr. Wormwood. Mycroft was doing something _incredibly_ moronic.

"Is that what you've been doing to the egg?" he demanded.

"It's not the original version," the elder Holmes retorted. "We've altered the original genetic composition of the plant somewhat, to make the one affected less unstable. And we're injecting this phoenix while she-"

"How do you know it's a girl?" Sherlock interrupted. Ignoring him, Mycroft continued, "-while she is still in the egg so she will have no previous grudges to distract her; we only will hatch her in a room with one person to be her mother figure, surrounded by images of people we need to have...taken care of, who will become the targets of her aggression. No one else."

"Cough, _brainwashing_, cough!" Mr. Wormwood whispered into his claw. Mycroft shot him a look, and he gazed back out of eyes that he'd purposely widened in a faux innocent expression. John couldn't help thinking that this gargoyle could be as much of a smart-alecky headache as Sherlock when he really wanted to be.

"There are so many ways that could go wrong," Sherlock drawled, taking his turn to be the headache.

"Oh, where to start?" Mr. Wormwood joined in. "Option 1: Phoenix sees one of the images first, thinks that's her mother. Option 2: Because of all the fireflower juice you've already pumped into her, Phoenix is so aggressive and angry she doesn't have an instinctive imprinting desire, attacks whoever you've suckered or forced into volunteering to be her mother. Option 3-"

"Do you think I don't see the potential problems?!" Mycroft interrupted, showing far more heat to his personality than an iceman is normally permitted. "I'm well aware of how risky this is, and of the instability of fireflower, altered genetic code or not! But this is an important, delicate political matter, and-" He stopped, and glowered at Mr. Nevar, who was still sitting in his chair, looking back and forth between the arguing men like a spectator at a tennis match.

"I think it's best for you to leave now. And if you breathe a word to anyone of what you have seen or heard here, or try to find this egg again, you will find yourself being sent through the next available teleportation mirror to the Bahamas."

With a horrified look on his face, Nevar started to scramble out the door. He paused only when Sherlock called, "If you arrange for an autopsy on your uncle's corpse before the burial, they'll probably find the residue of a spell somewhere inside him that instigated the heart attack. The aura of the spell, if you can trace it, should lead the MCPD right to the murderer."

Nevar gave a brief nod of thanks, and sped down the stairs, leaving the men, the gargoyle, and the dragon alone in the flat with the egg.

* * *

The politician sighed, and looked back down at the phoenix egg.

"How soon until it hatches?" Sherlock asked.

"It could happen any day now. Mr. Hellman stole it before the final three doses could be administered, and that has severely tampered with the experiment. Nevertheless, I must take control of it now."

He started forward to claim his prize-

"Oh, no you don't." A large gray foot suddenly rested on top of the egg, claws poised. Mycroft blanched.

"Mr. Wormwood, I've looked in your file. You are many things, but murderous is not one of them."

"You're right, I'm not. But I'd like to think that I am merciful. And it seems to me that a quick crushing would be far more merciful than being forced to work for you as an avian Incredible Hulk. I don't like the idea any more than you-probably a lot less than you-but I don't think I could live with myself if I stood by and watched you do this to the poor fledgling."

Mycroft began to stick his hand into his pocket, but Mr. Wormwood snapped, "Touch that phone and I'll crush it. I mean the egg. I'll crush the-"

"We get it!" Sherlock interrupted. He was staring between his brother and the gargoyle with interested eyes, looking delighted at the tension hovering between them. John was much less amused. As a doctor-and a very compassionate man, to crown it off-he didn't like the idea of the phoenix chick being crushed before it could hatch, or being a weapon for the British government. Sure, it wasn't really his problem, but it didn't seem right-

He was interrupted from his moral quandary by a hard tapping noise, and the tip of something small breaking through the shell, nearly spearing Mr. Wormwood's toe. He looked down at it in alarm, and after a moment, sighed.

"Of course it starts hatching right when we're fighting over it. This, gentlemen, is how my life works. I'm not even surprised anymore."


	10. The Light's Fantastic

So much darkness...stifling, cramped, hot. It was time to get out of this, to become...other. She didn't fully understand this need, but neither did she understand how to question it. She fought, pushing against the confines that had kept her for so long, feeling a burst of triumph when she managed to break through and snap more of the prison wall. So concentrated on her work was she that she didn't even pay attention to the loud noises from outside. They did not matter. All that mattered was getting free.

Finally, after a long time (far too long, in her opinion), she was able to poke her head out of the darkness into the light. There was so much she had to close her eyes at first, to keep from being blinded. Slowly, by degrees, she opened them again, squinting.

She saw a number of blurred images, filled with darkness. It seemed that they were all trying to get into her line of vision. She looked away, disgusted; she hated the darkness, she'd been trapped in it for far too long, she didn't want to see any more darkness-and then there was a figure of light.

Well, not really light. But compared to the dark forms around it, it was brilliance itself. Slowly she focused her vision- and saw that the light possessed the most beautiful, wonderful face she'd ever seen. The fact that it was the most wonderful only because it was the first she'd ever seen didn't register in her brain. All she knew was that she must follow it. Everywhere and anywhere.

Making excited noises, she began to fight her way out of the prison even faster, pushing and shoving until she spilled out in a heap. She didn't understand the babble of noise from the darker creatures as this happened. Not even the one that said, "Congratulations, Doc. You are now officially a mother."

**Let me know if you're confused by this, and I'll try to explain.**


	11. Mycroft Loses the Battle

**Hey, sorry I've been gone. I've had to think about what I wanted to write next, and have gone back to school, and a bunch of other junk. And sorry for those of you who don't like it, but there is a bit more Mycroft-bashing in this chapter, because I have fun doing it.**

***/***

"...You can't be serious," John finally croaked.

"I'm afraid I am. Now pick her up."

"What?"

Mr. Wormwood gestured at him urgently. "The first few minutes after a phoenix is born are crucial. The first person to touch her has to be her mother-in this case, the person she's imprinted on-or she'll die. It's some kind of ancient spell thing."

Reluctantly, John stepped forward and picked up the fledgling out of the suitcase and remains of her shell. As he looked at her, he observed that the phoenix fledgling was, in truth, kind of ugly. She was wrinkled, wet, and the small amount of coppery down here and there did nothing to cover her naked pink body. She also had a small tan-colored beak, and her irises were red-orange. Her overly-large head flopped about on its long skinny neck, and John had to support her against his chest. But even though he wasn't sure he liked the idea of being her 'mother', the baby phoenix suddenly seemed like she might not be all that bad, as she made pleased twittering noises and snuggled against him warmly.

Sherlock was becoming increasingly alarmed by the situation. In only the space of a few minutes, John was already becoming..._attached_ to the baby phoenix. The frown lines in his forehead had smoothed out, and his mouth had curled into the tiniest of smiles. How could he be so thick? Didn't he remember that they already had a pet, and didn't need another one around?

_It's not his fault,_ a nasty voice in his mind palace reminded him, _It-she-imprinted on him. Feeling affection is a natural next step in the process. In females it's known as a mothering instinct._

He was interrupted from his internal brooding by Mr. Wormwood's smug voice saying, "Well, I guess that solves this little problem."

Mycroft gave him a dark look, but said, "I suppose it does. For now."

The younger Holmes sibling understood perfectly both the gargoyle's glee, and his brother's anger. Because John had become the phoenix's chosen foster parent, that threw a monkey wrench into the government's plans to have one of their officials or whoever take on the responsibility. Separating them was not even an option, because she needed John to raise her. There was no way Mycroft would be able to bribe or threaten John into training her as a weapon, even if he did have his fat fingers in the pie of the monster world. Of course, he could try to take John to whatever governmental facility they planned to keep the phoenix at, but Sherlock would fight tooth and nail to prevent that, and the phoenix would likely attack anyone who came and appeared to be a threat towards the doctor. Even if she hadn't had her final dosages of fireflower, the ones she'd received more than likely made her a force to be reckoned with; Sherlock didn't know much about their abilities, but they must be very potent for the government to be experimenting on one in the first place. And by now, surely he knew better than to try having John assassinated, especially after placing him under special protection, and allowing him to stay with Sherlock for so long. Mycroft was stuck. And even though Sherlock didn't necessarily like the idea of having the animal in the flat, unless he could do experiments, seeing Mycroft stuck gladdened the petulant side of his heart.

Mycroft went toward John, limping the tiniest bit.

"They are not going to like this." He clearly didn't feel a need to explain who 'they' were.

"Well, I imagine you'll figure out something to tell them," was the nonchalant reply.

Mycroft's tone became even colder. "If she starts causing problems, or exposing herself to humanity, it will be on your head."

"I understand. I'll do my best to keep her under control."

The politician stepped closer, towering over John. "See that you do. We will be keeping a close watch on you, and if-yeow!"

In his desire to intimidate the doctor, Mycroft had miscalculated the safest distance he could be from him, and the phoenix had managed to contort her weak little neck enough for her to flop her head forward, and peck him soundly on the hand. Mycroft took a quick step back, holding his injured limb and cursing under his breath. She responded by craning her neck and hissing at him, like an angry swan. Sherlock found his opinion of the fledgling improve slightly.

_He should know by now that animals don't like him. Redbeard used to growl whenever he got too close._

"That's the sort of problem I'm talking about. Make sure she behaves!"

"Yes, sir." John clicked his heels together smartly. Mycroft just limped down the stairs and out the front door.

Sherlock sighed in disgust, and flopped onto the sofa.

"First a dragon, now a phoenix. Next thing you know, we'll be buying Mrs. Hudson a unicorn."

"That would only work if it wasn't the snobby kind that only likes young virgins," Mr. Wormwood pointed out.

"It would be okay with Sherlock, then," said John with a small grin. He and the gargoyle then burst into peals of laughter. Sherlock was less than amused.


	12. A Gargoyle for Dinner

To celebrate his bringing Fang back, and the arrival of the new family member to their flat, John invited Mr. Wormwood to stay for dinner. He happily accepted, and when John had trouble setting the baby phoenix down (she clung to him for dear life and whined if he tried to move her away from him), offered to do the actual cooking. Since their only other options were going out to eat, ordering take out (the former of which was probably impossible under these circumstances, and both of them cost money), or having Sherlock cook (John wasn't sure he trusted anything his flatmate could make, especially after Baskerville), he acquiesced, and sat down in his chair with the phoenix still in his lap. The gargoyle looked through the fridge and cupboards, and took out certain ingredients until he looked satisfied. Meanwhile, Sherlock was at the table, looking through his microscope at Fang's old skin (he'd shed at least once before Mr. Wormwood had taken him back to America, and now the detective wanted to see what he could learn from the old skin). As for Fang, he had contentedly climbed up Sherlock's leg and back, and draped himself over his shoulder in order to watch the study. Even though Sherlock had grumbled at him to "get off, you stupid creature," he had so far done nothing to dislodge him.

"I'm afraid my fiancee's a lot better at cooking than I am," Mr. Wormwood said as he washed his claws with soap and water, "but she has taught me a few good tricks. I hope you like Chinese chicken salad."

"That sounds delicious," John reassured him. He looked down at the fledgling. "Speaking of food, what is she supposed to eat?"

"Um, generally speaking phoenixes eat berries, maybe cinnamon sticks-Ovid thought they only eat frankincense and odoriferous gums, something like that, but since he probably never tried eating that himself, he didn't know how ridiculous a notion that was. Since she's been injected with fireflower juice since before she was hatched, it might affect her diet somewhat, but I'd say you should get some fruit to start with, try her out on that."

"We do have some strawberries somewhere in the fridge that I think are still fresh. Look behind the tonsils and the burst appendix."

The gargoyle didn't even bat an eye at this description of the fridge's contents; he just opened the fridge again, and pushed the items aside, producing a plastic carton of strawberries. He opened it, sniffed at them, and pulled out a few. Then the gargoyle crossed the room and dropped them onto the table next to Sherlock's elbow.

"Those got a bit too close to your body parts; they might have some interesting bacteria you could study."

Sherlock looked up at him in surprise. Then he finally said, "Thank you," and resumed inspection of the skin.

Mr. Wormwood returned to the kitchen, washed the strawberries, washed his claws again, and then came to John with the carton.

"Try feeding those to her."

"Thanks." John selected a small strawberry and held it close to the phoenix's beak. Her eyes opened, and after peering at the fruit suspiciously, with a lightning strike she snapped it up. Somehow she managed to completely miss John's finger and thumb, despite her being only an hour or so old. The doctor was impressed.

Something that had been niggling at the back of his mind suddenly came into focus. "Hey, Mr. Wormwood? I thought phoenixes didn't lay eggs. That they just burst into flames, and were reborn from the ashes. Sort of reincarnation."

The gargoyle snorted in derision as he used his claws to shred a head of cabbage. "That's just a myth. What really happens is that after the egg is laid, the father spontaneously combusts, and the ashes are made into a nest by the mother in order to keep the egg at just the right temperature. They will stay hot until the egg finally hatches some weeks later. Then, after the baby is old enough to fly by itself, the mother combusts too."

"Bit unfair to both the parents," Sherlock commented.

"Yeah, well, they don't seem to mind. It does mean, however, that phoenixes are extremely rare." Mr. Wormwood washed his claws again, and began to do the same thing to some pieces of chicken.

***/***

The Chinese chicken salad was delicious. Even Sherlock deigned to take a break from his experimenting and help himself to some, feeding bits of it to Fang, who was still draped over his shoulder. He didn't even seem to notice the weight. John kept the fledgling in his lap, giving her pieces of strawberry between bites. The gargoyle hid a smile as he watched the two men each embrace parenthood, sort of.

"What're you going to call her?" Mr. Wormwood suddenly asked, pointing at the phoenix with his fork.

"Good question. What's an appropriate name for a phoenix?"

Sherlock snorted. "'What's an appropriate name for a phoenix.' Of all the dumb questions-"

"Okay, then what would you suggest?" John demanded.

The hawage detective chewed thoughtfully on a piece of chicken for a few moments. Just when John figured he wasn't going to answer, he said, "Stella."

John and Mr. Wormwood gave him nearly identical strange looks, until he finally said, "What?"

"Nothing. It's just...that's a very nice name for her."

"You needn't sound so surprised," the detective grumbled.

"Well, he's probably not used to 'nice' and 'Sherlock Holmes' being in the same category," Mr. Wormwood snarked.

"I'm just being logical. She's going to grow up to be very bright, fiery, and beautiful. Stars are bright, fiery, and beautiful. The Latin word for star is 'stella.' It's a perfectly logical thought process."

"You could have also suggested naming her Star."

"No, that sounds stupid."

"Of course."

The newly christened Stella did not want to be separated from John for a moment, which made things rather difficult when he started having to go to the bathroom rather badly. Fortunately for him, after she finished gorging herself on strawberries, Stella gave a contented little sigh, and leaning against him, fell asleep. John slowly got up, and laid her down on his chair, which was still warm.

"I'll be right back."

John finished quickly, but not quite quickly enough. As he was washing his hands, he suddenly heard loud shrieking and snarling noises from outside, and Sherlock's voice bellowing, "John, get out here _NOW_!"

Without thinking twice, he bolted from the washroom in time to see Sherlock holding Fang, and Mr. Wormwood grabbing up an irate Stella, as both monsters snarled and snapped at each other, before the phoenix suddenly started breathing fire. John ran forward so fast he nearly seemed to break a sound barrier, and without thinking shoved Sherlock down, out of the way. Just in time to be hit by a blast of flame.


	13. Don't Worry, John Is Not Dead

Sherlock didn't have time to cry out before seeing his best friend get incinerated. He was barely even aware that he'd dropped Fang, he was too busy staring in horror as he pulled himself up, seemingly in slow motion, wanting to at least try to beat out the flames that were-that-that did not actually appear to be burning John.

Sure, his arms and torso were now covered in licking tongues of fire. But even though they ran up and down his body, he was not being injured by them in the least. Even the jumper was not so much as getting singed. John looked down at himself in amazement, scooping some of the fire off his sleeve and into his palm. It burned merrily, merely warm to the touch, until he closed his hand, snuffing it out. Finally, John looked over at Mr. Wormwood with a slight glare.

"Care to explain this?"

The gargoyle gave a sheepish smile.

"Heh. I suspected that might happen."

"Suspected what might happen?" John demanded, stepping towards him. Stella, who was still in the gargoyle's grip, gave a plaintive cry and began trying to wiggle free towards the doctor.

"It's a legend about becoming the foster moth-parent of a phoenix." He had enough sense not to try calling John a mother, in his present mood. "You take on some of the powers of one. Not that you'll be able to fly now; you'll just have power over fire. Be able to create it, manipulate it, not be burned by it, stuff like that. And maybe your tears will have healing powers; that's one of the few things that one author got right. Since you're the guardian of a phoenix, you need to have these abilities so you can better protect her-and yourself. I wasn't sure it would happen-like I said, it's just a legend."

"In your society, legends have a strange habit of coming true."

"Well, yes. But not always. If you-if you just try to snuff them out, you should be fine."

John patted the flames out, making sure that not so much as a spark was left. Then he finally took Stella from Mr. Wormwood; she dug her talons into his jumper, and draped her head on his shoulder. As he stroked the down on her back and wings, he glared at the gargoyle slightly.

"Why is this upsetting you? I think it's cool."

"I probably will too, once I get over the shock that I've just been _set on fire_. You didn't think I might want to know about that?"

"I got distracted! Besides, I didn't know for sure it would happen, and didn't want to risk Mr. Holmes testing the theory by dousing you in gas and lighting a match, or something like that."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence. You really think I'd risk John's life in such a dramatic way?" Sherlock demanded.

"Yes."

"...Well-I wouldn't."

Not sure he wanted to ask if Sherlock was telling the truth or not, John said, "I guess I can respect that. Um...how long is this power going to last?"

"Should be for as long as you're alive, or as long as the phoenix is alive."

"How long do they live?"

"About a hundred years. Pretty short when compared to most monsters. They're kind of our equivalent of butterflies. But it'll probably come in handy, considering your line of work."

"Could be," John mused, sitting back down. "Maybe a little conspicuous, though. If I tried to stop a criminal and ended up incinerating them, it could catch the attention of the police. I'll have to practice with it. So, I can just create fire whenever I want-?" He held up one hand, palm up, and did kind of a flexing motion. Nothing happened.

"You need to imagine and feel the heat shooting up from your chest," Mr. Wormwood said, looking at the brochure. "And it helps to eat lots of curry, spicy Doritos, things that bring on the fire."

John brought a picture into his head of a small streak of fire circling around his heart, moving past his lung, shooting up his arm towards his fingertips. He thought there was a warm sensation, but that could just be psychosomatic, so he kept concentrating, thinking of how warm and-dare he say it-natural the flames had felt in his hand earlier. And then his palm was becoming lightly covered in golden, softly crackling flames that barely tickled, and danced across his fingers in a way that didn't hurt at all.

John looked over at Sherlock, who stared back in similar intrigue. He held the fire for about ten seconds, before closing his hand and snuffing it.

"Bravo!" Mr. Wormwood declared, clapping. "Just like a fire bender!"

Both men looked at him in confusion. "A what?" asked Sherlock.

"Don't worry about it."

*/*/*/

After helping with the dishes, Mr. Wormwood decided it was time for him to get home. But first, he reached into one of his pockets, and pulled out a clawful of files that were quite disproportionate to the size of the pocket. He held them out to Sherlock. "Here."

"What are these?" The detective accepted the files with a raised eyebrow.

"Some cold cases here in London, monster related. Just thought you'd be interested."

Once again, Sherlock looked a little surprised and confused. "Why do you keep trying to ingratiate yourself to me?"

The gargoyle was not offended. "What leads you to that conclusion?"

"Most people are shocked and horrified by my experiments that I keep in the fridge. Even John is still disgusted that I put them near the food. And you don't do experiments of that sort yourself; you don't smell of chemicals, and in general are not interested in science, so you can't be desensitized to them. But you merely picked out the strawberries that were potentially infected, without being the least bit perturbed, and gave them to me to study. And now, just when the first case I've had involving the monster world ends-on a rather disappointing note, in my opinion, it ended too soon-you produce more for me. You keep doing things that are helpful to me and my work, even though we barely know each other."

Mr. Wormwood said, "I'm not trying to get anything from you, if that's what you're thinking."

"Then why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He looked at Sherlock seriously for a moment. Then, apparently realizing it wasn't, said, "For the same reason Doc does those sort of things for you. I like you. As a person. And as someone who does the same sort of work I do. I express that fact by doing nice things for you. I'd think you'd have realized that by now, living with Doc."

Sherlock wasn't, contrary to belief, a stranger to what it meant to 'be nice' to people. John had showed him time and time again what it was like to have people do nice things just because they liked someone, and he had even done them on occasion. But it wasn't something he expected on a regular basis from those he wasn't as familiar with; and he hadn't expected it from this gargoyle. He stared at Mr. Wormwood blankly.

"I'll take that look as a 'thank you,'" the gargoyle finally said. He held out his hand to Sherlock with a smile. "Been nice seeing you, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock snapped out of his surprise, and glared at the outstretched claw. Mr. Wormwood's smile deepened into an impertinent grin, and finally he bent all of his claws inward except for his pointer and thumb. Looking more appeased, Sherlock wrapped his fingers around the pointer claw, and shook firmly.

John gave them both a bemused look. "Am I missing something?"

"I once taught him not to underestimate my strength," the gargoyle explained, still grinning. Then he pulled away from Sherlock, and held out his hand to the doctor. "See you around, Doc."

"John. You can call me John."

"Oh." He looked pleased. "Then just call me Tristan, yeah?"

John nodded, shaking his hand.

"If you ever want or need to talk, just say my name and look into this." Tristan reached into his other pocket, and produced a small hand mirror, which he placed on the table. Then he left, again going up the stairs and through John's window. Neither man was surprised by this.

*/*/-/-*/*-*/-*/**

When John went to bed later that night, he brought Stella with him. He could see by now that this was not an option. Thankfully, she did allow him to put her down long enough to change into pajamas. Then he tucked himself in, and snuggled her against his chest, in a position very much like Fang used to inhabit. John felt a small pang of guilt, remembering the little dragon, and wondered what he would do, if he'd try to come up here. It appeared he and the phoenix didn't like each other-definitely a recipe for trouble, since they were both creatures of fire. And then from downstairs he he heard the tinkle of breaking glass, and then a familiar baritone voice snarling, "Aaargh! Will you go away, you stupid creature!" among other things. John chuckled; it sounded like the dragon would be all right.

Fang happily climbed back onto Sherlock's lap after just being shoved off, his wagging tail nearly knocking over another test tube. Sherlock managed to catch it just in time; good thing too, since this one was hydrochloric acid, and might hurt the dragon if it spilled on him. Not that he cared. It was only because it might upset John if Fang got maimed. That was all. Really.

"I said, _off_," Sherlock commanded, pointing an imperious finger at the stairs. "Go bother-"

_No, wait. If he goes up there, he and the phoenix will probably start fighting again, and maybe destroy John's room. He hates it being messy; besides, he probably wants to get a good night's sleep for once._

"Go sleep on the sofa or something!" he finally growled. "You don't need to keep climbing on me, I'm not a tree, or whatever bloody object you think I am!"

Fang licked his chin.

"You're disgusting. Get off me."

Fang, unperturbed by his irritation, merely settled down, having to curl up into a large ball just to stay on the detective's bony legs. Even so, bits of him drooped off on either side, and he had to dig his claws firmly into Sherlock's trouser legs. Fang yawned, so widely Sherlock couldn't resist peering in. He quickly examined the dragon's long tongue, throat and teeth-all in good condition, though possibly in need of a good brushing. And maybe a few mints; Sherlock wrinkled his sensitive nostrils at the strength of dragon breath. Regardless, Fang soon closed his little jaws, and then laid his head down. Before long, he was sound asleep, with little wisps of smoke rising from his nostrils. Grumbling, Sherlock resumed his experiments with _what remained_ of the dragon skin-apparently the combination of chemicals Fang had knocked over could dissolve it when mixed together, he'd have to figure out what they were so he could avoid spilling any on Fang. But only for John's sake. Since he was obviously so fond of the dragon. Sherlock sighed, and looked down at Fang for a moment, calculating how long it would take for his thighs to go numb, and whether it would wake him up if Sherlock transferred them to the sofa.


	14. Domestic Life Violently Interrupted

After a few weeks had passed, Sherlock became resigned to both creatures living in the flat with them. He also became resigned to being Fang's personal favorite; whenever he sat or lay down anywhere, the dragon would appear, climbing on him, nuzzling him, licking him, sleeping on him, and basically showering him in affection and dragon spit. Sherlock would grumble at him to go away, or to get off, "you stupid creature," all to no avail. He began to suspect that Fang thought the insult was his nickname. And secretly, though he was unwilling to admit it, he liked having an animal be so fond of him. It filled him with ridiculously nostalgic sentiments, true, but he told himself he could stop feeling them anytime he wanted, so indulging them for a while longer wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, Fang proved to be quite useful; Sherlock trained him to fetch items when he needed them, such as scalpels, bottles of chemicals, and the like; and when the Bunsen burner broke again, the little dragon's fiery breath proved to be a more than adequate substitute. Whenever he shed his skin, or lost a tooth, Sherlock had something new to experiment on. And he began working on a chemical compound to improve Fang's breath, which kept him entertained when there were no cases to work on.

As for Stella, after about five weeks she began to look far less hideous, because not only did her neck become stronger, so her head didn't flop around anymore, but her feathers began to grow in. And what beautiful feathers: long, vibrant, a sort of explosive mixture of red, orange and yellow, with even a few touches of green. She still couldn't fly, but she became able to stand on her own two feet, and walk around the flat after John, without needing to be carried all the time.

Speaking of which, John had some difficulty in handling Stella. She never wanted to be separated from him for more than a few minutes, which led to difficulties when he got called in to work. The first time, he just stuck her in the bathtub, in hopes she wouldn't be able to burn that down. However, he could hear her screeching and wailing from all the way out in the street (he had to do some very quick thinking to explain the noise to Mrs. Hudson on his way out, and finally just told her it was a new experiment that needed to not be disturbed), and when he came home early, he was greeted by Sherlock, wearing a lot of messily-done bandages all over his cut up, burned hands, and an enraged scowl.

"John, you are never, _ever_ to leave here without that bird again. _Do you understand me?!_"

Thankfully, nothing else in the bathroom had been that much damaged.

On the bright side, this gave John an opportunity to test whether his tears really did have healing powers (they did, within a matter of seconds, but he shuddered to imagine what people might think if they saw him crying while bent over Sherlock's hand). After that, he sent Sherlock to the shop on Fleet Street (the kitsune gave him her number too; when he returned, he handed it to John with a dismissive snort. John crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the air for Fang to flame), in order to buy a spell that would keep the phoenix from being noticeable to other people. It came in the form of a small, gold collar. When Stella wore it, anyone who wasn't a monster or hawage would just not see her-or if they did, they'd see her as a canary or something; the human mind was easy to deceive like that.

Stella still hated anyone besides John, though after the scolding he gave her, she would no longer peck or breathe fire at Sherlock or Fang. She'd just hunch her neck, making her feathers rise in a large crest, and hiss at them, glaring balefully. But as she got older, she seemed to have developed slightly more discipline and self-control.

Speaking of the healing powers, John had been trying very hard not to use them while working. But it was a sort of automatic reflex; whenever he saw someone with cuts or burns or similar injuries, he would feel his eyes try to fill up, and have to blink very hard and pretend to rub his eyes because of itchiness or something. It would be somewhat difficult to explain if people started noticing; also, he worried that it was selfish of him _not_ to use his gift. After all, he was a healer, and it was his job to help other people, so wasn't it wrong for him to save the tears for only himself and his flatmates? Finally, he reached a compromise that somewhat satisfied himself: whenever he started feeling the urge to cry, he would find liquid medicine bottles somewhere in the hospital, and drip the tears into there. It meant that more and more sick people started to show up, hearing about the incredible medicine that they seemed to have, but his conscience was somewhat sated.

He also began practicing his firemaking abilities, trying to throw fire, control where it went. It was easiest for him to just send it in a long stream towards a target, but it also left him feeling drained far too fast. It took a lot of effort, but finally John figured out how to create a ball of flame, and hurl it at a target, moving or otherwise. In some ways, it wasn't much more difficult than learning how to fire a gun. And it seemed oddly appropriate, his having both the power to heal or hurt. He was both a soldier and a doctor, after all.

***-****-*-*/*-*/**-/-/*/*-/*/

Then, in June, Sherlock, who had somehow managed to find a place that sold monster newspapers, came bouncing into the flat, with Fang at his heels (they had purchased a collar for him too; apparently people saw him as a dachshund when they took him out on walks), waving a paper in one hand.

"There's been a murder!" he proclaimed in delight.

John looked up from the book he'd been reading to Stella. "Yeah?"

The genius nodded. "Sue-May Fukuda, age 32, found dead in her shop this morning with only a dribble of green liquid in the corner of her mouth. They suspect poison or a potion of some kind, but don't know exactly. Come on!"

Curious now, the doctor held out his hand to take the paper from Sherlock-only for him to step back slightly. John made a confused sound. He looked at the detective, and saw he had an unusual facial expression-something that, if he didn't know better, he might have thought was guilt of some kind.

"You might not want to see."

"Why not?"

"It just might be easier for you if we go to the crime scene and you see in person."

John laid aside the book and got up, slipping Stella's collar from his pocket onto her neck as he did so. "Why? Come on, don't hold out on me. And are we even allowed at the crime scene?" He stepped forward and quickly snatched the paper from his friend's grip.

"I've met the DI of the monster division, she even asked for our help. John, you really shouldn't, it might make it hard for you to focus-"

Too late. John looked at the page talking about the murder-down at the rictus of the kitsune who owned the shop on Fleet Street.

It wasn't like he'd had that close a relationship with the woman. Heck, he'd avoided getting her number when she tried to make it clear she was interested in him. And he'd had people he knew die before. Far more than anyone should. But it was still a bit of a shock that she was dead; people he knew weren't supposed to die in civilian life. She'd obviously been a rather lonely person, and John felt an irrational pang of guilt for not going on at least one date with her, for not even knowing her name. He pulled himself together, and read through the details in the news. Then he laid the paper aside, and looked up at Sherlock.

"Shall we?"

Unexpectedly, Sherlock asked, "Are you all right?"

"It's fine. Nothing that's never happened to me before." John grabbed his jacket and shrugged into it, before Stella clambered onto his shoulder, and then headed for the stairs. "You coming or not?"

After a hesitant moment, wondering if he should try to say something, Sherlock picked up Fang's leash and followed, soon passing John up with those long legs of his.


	15. Tristan's Finest Hour (Not)

**Dear Readers,**

**In case you get confused, I've changed up the chronology of Sherlock a bit. Because I can. I have the power! ****POWER****! Forgive a cruel chuckle, heh heh heh...power...**

**So Reichenbach happens a few months later than it does in the show, giving me more time in which to do this. Hope you don't mind.**

*****/*****

DI Ruth Cardew of New Scotland Yard, Monster Division, was a fae. She had startling, golden-orange eyes, thick, long black hair, a sort of Mediterranean complexion, and large, feathered wings sprouting from her back-a Fonin. She was standing inside the shop when the two men and their animals got out of the cab, arms folded. Just as Sherlock started to waltz through the doorway, she stepped into his path, jabbing a finger into his chest.

"Let me make one thing clear, Mr. Holmes. I asked you to help me because I've heard you're very good at what you do, at putting the puzzle pieces together. That's good, we need that. But so help me, if any of you-" she gestured to John, Fang and Stella, who were right behind him- "start causing trouble, or or if you try to hold off on telling me anything important, I'm asking Constable Gudrunn to throw you out on your ear, and we'll continue investigating without you. Do I make myself clear?"

The detective glared down at her. "I don't have time for the third degree, I've got a case to solve. Out of my way, please."

"Not until I'm sure we're clear on this."

Sherlock stood there defiantly, glaring down at her. Without breaking eye contact, Cardew called, "Gudrunn, would you come here, please?"

The next thing Sherlock knew, there was a slight shuddering of the ground, and then he was looking up...and up...into the face of an 8'4" troll.

Constable Gudrunn, as I mentioned, was extremely tall. He was also covered in shaggy black fur, even beneath his uniform, but Sherlock could still make out that he was bulging with muscles. Everything about him seemed craggy: his bulbous nose, his bulging golden-brown eyes, his massive shoulders-everything. He looked back down at the detective solemnly, and asked in a deep, rumbling voice that had a Scandinavian tone to it, "Is there a prrrroblem, Inspector?"

"No, not yet."

"Goot." The troll nodded his head, and clumped back to the corner of the shop, near where Sherlock could see the body. He itched with impatience to examine it, there were so many clues inside that he needed to see, needed it now…

"One more time, Mr. Holmes. Do I have your word you won't do anything that will require me asking Gudrunn to throw you out?"

"Jawohl, mein Fuhrer!" Sherlock growled sarcastically, saluting and clicking his heels.

"All right then." Cardew stepped out of his way, and he bounced into the shop, heading over to the body. He couldn't resist calling over his shoulder, "And it's a little unfair for you to be bringing the good constable into this, since you're obviously dating him. That's playing favorites."

"Not true; I don't go any easier on him than on anyone else," she retorted. John, who finally was able to come in after his friend, animals in tow, looked at her in surprise.

"You're not surprised that he knows that?"

"Right now, I don't care how he knows. We've got a dead body here, and need to find out why she's dead, and how, and who did it. He can dazzle me with his genius deductions about my personal life after that." Cardew headed to one of the back rooms of the shop, ignoring the miffed look on Sherlock's face, and gestured at the body. "Go to it. We'll come back when you're done."

*/*/*/*/

At first John questioned the logic of the woman leaving them alone, especially after she'd just been so suspicious that Sherlock would do something out of control; then he saw the bat hanging from the ceiling, staring down at them out of narrowed eyes. Foni could communicate with animals; this one was probably spying for her, but at the same time it was out of the way, so Sherlock could investigate without a lot of people around disturbing him. Clever, Cardew. Very clever. Sherlock crouched down at the side of the dead kitsune, beckoning for John to come to him. Within seconds John was on the other side of Ms. Fukuda, setting down Fang and Stella next to him. The little dragon sniffed at the liquid still at the corners of her horrid grimace; John hurriedly pushed his nose away before it could get too close.

"Careful; we don't know what that is."

Fang shot him an injured look.

"I just don't want you getting poisoned."

Fang huffed in understanding, and then walked around the body, climbing up onto Sherlock's shoulder. The detective barely noticed. Meanwhile, Stella fell asleep, leaning against John.

"John, what do you make of it?"

John did a small examination of the corpse, trying to think what Sherlock would have noticed.

"Been dead for about two hours, doesn't appear to have gone through any convulsions first-she was probably standing here when the poison took effect, and just fell to the floor. My guess is that whatever this is-and however it got into her system-she died instantly. Probably stopped her heart, very fast-acting."

Sherlock gave him a half-smile of approval. "Very good. But you missed the facts that she didn't know her killer that well, but was on friendly terms with him or her, and was given the poison via the mouth-either by having a drink that he or she gave her, or a kiss, though given her desperation for a social life, and apparent inability to establish a romantic relationship, the latter is highly unlikely."

"Of course I did," John muttered. "Anything else vitally important that I missed?"

"The killer used excessive peppermint hand lotion."

John reached over the body, and picked up Ms. Fukuda's right hand, sniffing at it. He got a strong whiff of peppermint. Then he lowered her arm, and sniffed her left hand; sure enough, no trace of peppermint on that hand (instead it smelled a bit like something he thought was lavender), so probably the killer had shaken her hand, leaving the smell of his or her lotion on it. "You're right. Unless it's her lotion, and she simply didn't have time to put it on both hands before she was murdered."

Sherlock beamed with more approval. "Her bottle of hand lotion is on the counter, next to the cash register. It's lavender-scented. Very old brand, she's used it for ages, because it holds some sort of sentimental value to her; she's not likely to change it at the drop of a hat."

"What about the rest?"

"Well, since she was a naturally affectionate woman-and like I said, desperate for companionship, considering that she kept giving out her number to any male she found attractive, she'd have greeted anyone she knew intimately with a hug, not just a handshake. And like you said, there's no signs of a struggle, so she allowed the poison to be administered willingly by one of the two methods-she foolishly trusted the person. Either that, or she was mesmerized at the time, but I've read the brochure, and mesmerism isn't all that common in the monster world; very few of even the most powerful mages and alchemists can do it. It's more likely she was given the poison of her own will."

"And the administration by mouth is because of the green liquid dribbling out?" John pointed to it.

"Exactly. The color might be more an after-effect of the poison than the color of the poison itself." Sherlock pulled a small glass vial out of his pocket, and quickly scooped some of the liquid inside, sealing it neatly afterward with a rubber cap. "We'll have to analyze this, figure out what could produce this effect. John, look it up in the brochure."

The doctor looked at him, hoping he was kidding. When he saw that Sherlock obviously wasn't, he gave a small, exasperated sigh. "I don't have it with me."

Sherlock looked at him in annoyed surprise. "What do you mean? I specifically asked you to bring it."

"No you didn't. You never once said anything regarding the brochure. You just said that we had a case, and told me to come on." John gave an abbreviated account of the conversation.

"Well, you need to start learning to anticipate my wishes! It'll be easier to identify this if we don't have to go to the lab and try to separate the ingredients."

"Don't you dare blame this on me, I'm not your bloody PA. And why not ask the nice police officers if they can tell us what it is?" John indicated the direction in which they had gone.

"If they knew, they wouldn't have asked me to come. And technically you are-"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Before Sherlock could finish, John had dug into his pocket, pulled out the hand mirror which he always carried around now, and called into it, "Tristan, we need you!"

The mirror began to glow, with a soft, blue light. Then it started to get bigger; John hurriedly set it down and stepped back. The mirror grew and grew, until it was just the right size for someone to step through...And then, Tristan Wormwood stumbled into the shop, fell to his hands and knees a few inches from the body, and threw up.

*/*/*/

Sherlock, looking disgusted, stepped in front of the gargoyle, keeping a respectable distance while at the same time making sure none of the sick would get onto the corpse and contaminate the crime scene. There wasn't much that came out, but Tristan was clearly miserable. John wondered if he should do something to help, but the gargoyle finally sat up on his haunches, wiping his mouth on the back of his shirt sleeve.

"Sorry, teleportation mirrors really don't agree with me. I'm sure I bought the voice-only model!" He glared at the mirror. "Dumb thing must have upgraded itself; I hate technology sometimes. By the way, hi."

"Hey, Tristan," said John. He'd been only hoping to have a voice conversation as well, but decided to roll with the situation. "We've got a corpse we need you to look at. You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. That happens just about every time I use a mirror, unless I can keep it down. What happened to the corpse?"

"She was poisoned, and we don't know with what. How well do you know poisons?"

"Pretty well. Hold on a sec." Tristan stood, and called through the mirror-way. "C'mon through, kid! This'll be good experience for you!"

The mirror shimmered, and a few seconds later a girl appeared in the shop with them. As soon as she did, the mirror shrank back to its old self.

Sherlock Holmes was rather peeved at John bringing the other detective into this, when he was perfectly willing to solve it himself, but like his friend, decided to roll with it. Which showed surprising character development; if this had happened a few years ago, he would probably have gone off and sulked in a corner, complaining he didn't need someone else's help. Instead, he examined the girl. She was more or less human, as far as he could tell; about eighteen years old, long dark hair, pale complexion, brown eyes, orange-and-black harlequin sweater, jeans, dark trainers. He dug deeper, as Tristan told them, "This is my assistant, Calla Gardiner. Calla, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson."

"Hi," she said softly. _American accent, like the gargoyle, but more midwestern. She'd spent most of her life being rather underweight, but had just recently started eating more healthily; left-handed, like John; didn't worry much about her personal appearance, since her sweater hung very loosely on her thin frame, and her shoes were a brand most girls, as far as he knew, wouldn't be caught dead in-oh, this was interesting. When John stepped closer to say hello, her shoulders involuntarily tensed up just the tiniest bit, and her eyes dropped towards the ground. The shoulders relaxed soon afterward, but there had definitely been tension. It's almost like she was...__afraid__ of John. Requires further analysis._

Sherlock stepped towards Calla, craning his neck slightly, trying to see what else he could glean from her, and to see how she might react towards him. She noticed, and cautiously stepped a little bit behind Tristan; he made her nervous too. And he noticed that she was still looking down; in fact, she seemed unwilling to look anyone in the face. Even when she first showed up and greeted Tristan, her eyes did not meet his. _Lack of concern about appearance, underweight, pale, seems very naturally timid and afraid around men, except Tristan, but she avoids his eyes as well as mine and John's. Victim of child abuse, most likely from the father, who was rescued by Tristan; still don't understand about the eyes, but there might be other factors involved…_

He was jerked out of his mind palace by Tristan saying, "Oh oh, look at this!" He and Calla had both knelt down by the victim, giving it their own examination. Sherlock briefly noticed, with some jealousy, that Fang had climbed into Calla's lap, and was allowing himself to be scratched by her. But now the gargoyle was moving Ms. Fukuda's hair aside, from where it sprawled across the floor, and revealing a white slip of paper. A note!

Tristan sniffed at it, and cringed away in disgust.

"It smells of peppermint, same as whoever killed her. Kid, pick it up, please, it's better if I don't risk touching it."

Calla lifted the paper without complaint. Sherlock stepped over, looking at it from above, but being careful not to block out the light; her shoulders tensed up again, momentarily, when he came behind her. The note was typed, so there would be no handwriting to trace, on a half sheet of white computer paper; he'd need to check for fingerprints, but he bet there wouldn't be any. Whoever did this was a bit too thorough for that.

Tristan read aloud, "_Salve, care mea!_ That's Latin, and basically means, 'Hello, my dear!'" He glanced up at Sherlock. "I think it's for you."


	16. The Breath of Doom

The first thought to cross Sherlock's brain was: _Brilliant. Oh, this is __brilliant__!_ He spent a moment filled with the thrill of the hunt, the knowledge that they-he and his rival-were in the same playground, had access to the same resources, both knew about the monster world. The possibilities this opened up! And then he saw the expression on John's face, and any sort of happiness he might have felt was incinerated like those pieces of newspaper Fang liked to burn. He remembered, all too clearly, the Pool, the danger of meeting him face to face, and the fear that they were both going to die; and based on John's face, he was remembering too. That was the problem with having a friend who could be put in danger: he couldn't enjoy pursuing this man as a game anymore.

Tristan interrupted his thoughts with his wry comment: "This is from that Moriarty dude, isn't it?"

Sherlock nodded slowly, smiling a bit at the gargoyle's choice of words.

"It would appear so. He probably wasn't the one who did it, but he's behind the death of Ms. Fukuda."

"Can you get anything from the note?"

"Not much; I'd have to give it closer observation, find out the brand of paper and ink that were used-"

"I was asking Calla," Tristan interrupted. "not you."

"Her?" The older detective looked affronted.

"Yes." Tristan looked back at the girl, who was still holding the note. "Want to give it a shot?"

"Okay," she whispered. She pressed her fingers flat against the paper, and her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. John glanced at Sherlock questioningly, and the detective just shrugged. It was probably some kind of mumbo-jumbo, maybe psychometry. Then Calla began to speak.

"There were two people who touched this last. Both wore rubber gloves, so it's hard to get any impressions...but one of them's coming through a bit clearer…" She shuddered suddenly, and her eyes opened. "It's not a good place in his head."

"You don't have to look," the gargoyle reassured her.

"No, it's fine. It'll probably help you solve this, or figure out something important." She began to concentrate again. And then she started speaking, and her voice changed. Not by a lot-it was still audibly female; but it was as if the inflection, tone, and such all became those of Jim Moriarty.

"Oh, _delightful_! We can play a new game, now that Sherlock's finally found out about this part of the world too!"

Sherlock inwardly cringed as his previous thoughts were flung back at him from the mind of the consulting criminal.

"Wonder how much he knows? All we've seen is that he's got some extra pets; I think I'll do a little test run. Poison that-" Calla cringed, and said in her normal voice, "I'm not going to repeat that." Then she continued, "It's close to home, not enough to touch them, but just to show Sherlock that I've got my Eye. On. You!" She grinned, face twisting in a way that looked out of place. "Then what? Maybe go five for five again? Except that's repetition: BO-RING! I'll need something more than that for Sherlock-_Sherlock_-SHERLOCK!"

Calla dropped the paper, hurriedly wiping her hands on her jeans as if they were covered in muck. After taking a few deep breaths, she glanced over in the detective's direction.

"I honestly can't tell if he loves you or hates you. Either way, his obsession with you is disturbing."

"Tell me something I don't know. Something _useful_, such as where he is, hmm?"

Calla answered mildly, "I can only tell you what was on his mind at the time. But I did see a few images of what looked like a science lab, and something in a big glass cage nearby. He was oddly gleeful about whatever it was. And everything was oddly tinted, as if he were wearing special glasses. Tristan, does that help?"

Sherlock glanced at Tristan, who was crouched over, scrutinizing the body again. His shoulders stiffened at the mention of something in a cage.

"Kid, can you describe the animal at all?" He was looking at the green dribble, and even though he was leaning closer to get a good look at it, his claws suddenly came up and pinched his nostrils shut.

"Not really, it was in shadow for the most part. But it was big, and looked kind of scaly. About the size of a big cow, maybe."

Tristan looked up, red eyes wide. "Oh, shoot. Snot. Bloody, flipping snot!"

*/*/*/*/*

"Bloody flipping snot?" Sherlock repeated, one eyebrow raised.

"Xen doesn't like me to swear," the gargoyle murmured absentmindedly; Sherlock deduced that must be the name of his fiancee. "This is bad, if Moriarty has managed to catch what I think he has. Though heck if I know how he used it; I can't see any hoof prints, or smell anything new, though that might be just as well-"

"What is it?!" Sherlock snarled. People had such an annoying habit of pausing for dramatic effect, rather than getting to the point!

Tristan looked up at him. "Have you ever heard of a catoblepas?"

Instantly his brain translated the word into English. "'To look downwards'?"

"Yeah, that's what the Greeks call it. It's a monster that kind of looks like a bizarre gnu."

"A bizarre new what?" asked John after a second, as he picked up Stella. She instantly snuggled into his arms, but remained asleep.

"No, a G-N-U. Wildebeest."

"Oh." The doctor looked sheepish.

"As I was saying, the catoblepas looks like a wildebeest, only with a body covered in a hard, scaly shell, like an armadillo, except even stronger. It has a kind of weak neck, and a really big head covered in long, thick hair. The head's so heavy that it constantly hangs downward on its' weak little neck. It's a pretty inoffensive beast, mainly known to live in Ethiopia, spending its' time grazing and wandering the plains in peace."

"But…?"

"But because of its diet, mainly consisting of plants that are deadly to other creatures, the breath of the catoblepas kills whoever-or whatever, I believe-smells it. Also, it's said that whoever looks it in the eyes will either turn to stone, or drop dead on the spot, which comes to more or less the same thing. It therefore has no natural enemies, and everything in general leaves it alone. The way this woman looks reminds me very much of a picture I once saw of someone who'd apparently come into contact with a catoblepas, even though the grin is new. If Moriarty has somehow managed to capture one and use it to his advantage...then we're all in trouble."

There was a moment of sober silence. It was broken by Fang sneezing, and shooting a small flame out his nose. Without thinking much about it, John thrust out a hand, drawing the flame to him, and snuffing it out. Tristan clapped in approval.

"You've gotten good at that."

"Thanks."

The gargoyle looked over at Sherlock. "You know London better than I do. Where's a good place to keep a catoblepas? Assuming of course that he is still in London."

Sherlock thought about it. But offhand, nowhere came to mind. He said, "I'll have to do some research. He obviously didn't bring it to the shop; like you said, there are no hoof prints."

"If he's got connections in the monster world, it's possible he used a spell or something that would levitate it here; or maybe somehow got a sample of its breath, or a video feed so she could look it in the eyes without its being there in person, though that doesn't explain the green stuff…" Tristan mused in much the same vein as the older detective.

"We can talk about it back at the flat. Come on." Sherlock readjusted his scarf, and was about to head out the door, when a voice demanded, "What have you found out, Mr. Holmes? And who are these two?" DI Cardew had come back into the shop, and was looking at Tristan and Calla suspiciously.

Sherlock groaned.

**Psst! Hey! This is a message for my British readers, if there are any, or other people who know England better than I do? Where's a good place to keep a catoblepas? Preferably somewhere with a laboratory where it could be safely contained. Any good suggestions?**


	17. Calla in the Mind Palace

Tristan explained to Cardew that he was another work colleague of Sherlock's, and that Calla was his assistant. She was annoyed by his intrusion, but John explained that they'd needed him to provide extra information; and when they told her that they needed to look for a catoblepas, or someone in possession of a catoblepas (namely Jim Moriarty, or at least part of his web), she was somewhat appeased by their cooperation. She warned Sherlock once again to let her know if they found out any important information, and then dismissed them.

As soon as they were free to go, Sherlock led the way out into the street, hailing a cab. He handed over the fare money, and pulled himself in close to the window. It was a rather tight squeeze with all four of them inside, but somehow they managed.

"I see your fiancee's an artist," Sherlock suddenly commented, examining Tristan over the top of John's head.

The gargoyle looked over at him and nodded. "Yeah. Mostly painting and drawing."

John frowned, confused. "How-"

"Oh, really, it's nothing short of obvious, John. There's traces of paint on the back of his neck and shirt collar made as she put her claws around his neck when she kissed him goodbye earlier today. It also explains in some ways why she permits him to continue wearing such atrocious neckties, and in general having a scruffy appearance; artists aren't known for their fashion sense."

The doctor winced at both the detective's unkind words and unfair stereotyping. But Tristan just looked at him mildly, and said, "It's a bit better than going around looking like a wannabe Gestapo agent."

Sherlock stared at him in surprise; the gargoyle shrugged.

"Hey, you throw an insult at me, I'm gonna throw one right back." Then he grinned impudently. John snickered, but Sherlock remained in miffed silence all the rest of the way home.

***/***

Back at his and John's flat, after taking a position standing at the window, Sherlock sank into the depths of his mind palace, wondering where Moriarty was holding the beast. More importantly, what was he doing with it? It didn't seem quite his style for him to possess a catoblepas, or at least to use it as a weapon. It killed far too quickly; Moriarty usually liked to play with people, or drag their deaths out as long as possible. Granted, it was a very slow-moving creature, so perhaps he would use it to torture someone, maybe immobilize them somewhere and make them wait around for the catoblepas to get close enough to kill them by breath or a look? Yes, that was a very efficiently cruel way to toy with someone...a science lab, it was in a science lab...that meant Moriarty had access to one, or had just created one in whatever hole he was hiding out in...he needed more data…

Sherlock opened his eyes.

"John?"

"He and Tristan got hungry, and went out to pick up something," Calla's voice replied softly. "They left me here in case you got an idea, so you wouldn't go running off on your own."

Sherlock looked over at her; she was sitting at the table, crocheting what appeared to be a long green scarf. Her eyes remained downcast, focused on her work, and her shoulders tensed up slightly under his gaze. In a way, Sherlock mused as he scrutinized her, she could pass as Molly Hooper's younger sister. They had the same kind of natural timidity, and even the same sort of coloring, hair and eyes. Interesting, that.

Though irritated at the lack of John, he decided she would be an adequate substitute for what he needed.

"Would you hand me my phone?" he asked. He could use that to look up more information, narrow down the number of places possible.

"No."

It took him approximately 5 seconds to register that his request had just been refused. Sherlock looked sharply at Calla, eyes narrowing into pale slits.

"What?"

"No," she repeated, looking up at his shirtfront. "Your phone is in your back pants pocket, and I'm sorry, but I really don't feel comfortable with the thought of putting my hand there."

The infuriating girl somehow managed to look apologetic and defiant at the exact same time as she sat there, hands still busily crocheting away, resolute. Sherlock glared at her icily, trying to assert his will, but it was so difficult when he couldn't peer deep into her eyes, a trick that always worked with Molly or John or whoever else he wanted to do something. She just sat there, working away, until finally, with a long-suffering sigh, he reached his own hand into his back pocket and pulled out his phone (an action that took all of two seconds). Then he noticed a mug of tea sitting on the table about an equal distance between them; based on numerous signs, he could tell John had made it for him before leaving.

"Then would you at least hand me my tea?" He held out his other hand imperiously.

"All right." Calla laid aside her crochet, and waved her hand. The air seemed to crackle slightly, and then the mug levitated into the air, crossed the room (wobbling slightly), and turned until the handle was within his reach.

After a second, Sherlock wrapped his fingers around it, and lifted it to his lips. It was still warm, so John and Tristan (and presumably Stella) had not been gone long.

"So, you're a magic user," he said when he finished drinking.

"Yes. We generally use the word 'mage,' or 'alchemist' for the very powerful ones. But I'm just a mage."

"You could have levitated my phone out of my pocket."

"The tea was easier." Calla began crocheting again. But Sherlock did not miss the wisp of a smile that flashed over her face; she was actually sort of teasing him! At that moment Sherlock reassessed his previous opinion of her. She was obviously made of somewhat stronger stuff than Molly Hooper.

Sherlock started to step over to the sofa so he could scroll through information on his phone while lying down-except that when he tried, he nearly fell over. The reason became clear very quickly: while he was absorbed in his mind palace, Fang had wrapped himself around the detective's feet, and gone to sleep.

"You stupid creature," he grumbled at the dragon. Fang snored softly, wisps of smoke curling up from his nostrils. Sherlock crouched down, and with far more fondness than his words had implied he felt, unwrapped Fang, gathering him up into his arms. He then flopped down onto the sofa, draping the dragon across his chest and tucking his little head into the crook of his neck. Fang purred in his sleep, and kneaded his shirt with his claws. Hoping his curls wouldn't get singed, Sherlock commenced looking through possible hideouts.

Soon he had it narrowed down to three possible places, two of which were in London. Setting half of his brain to work on narrowing the field farther, he decided to further unravel the mystery that was Calla Gardiner. Thinking about the catoblepas, and that in its case, looks literally could kill, had given him a clue as to why she acted the way she did.

Abruptly he said aloud, "You naturally avoid people's eyes for a reason, don't you?"

Out of the corner of his eye Sherlock saw Calla jump slightly, and then glance at him. After a second, she replied, "Yes."

"At first I thought it might be just you were intimidated by John and I, but then I noticed you don't look at Tristan either. You're obviously not afraid of him; in fact, you practically worship him. I next thought it could be that you have autism, or something similar, but that's not quite right either. But, now that I know for certain that you have magical abilities, in all probability it's something magical in nature. So, what is it? Do you make people drop dead, like this creature we're looking for?"

Calla's thin face suddenly turned indignant. "Certainly not!"

"Then what?" Sherlock slowly sat up, keeping Fang snug against him, and then stood and walked towards her.

Calla cringed away slightly. "No, I don't…"

"I'm not going to hurt you." _Good heavens, was he actually reassuring her? John was rubbing off on him so much._ "I just want to know what happens. If it won't kill me, surely it won't hurt to show me."

The girl's mouth twisted, and her body language was making it quite clear that she didn't want to do this. Then, with a small sigh, she finally laid down her crochet again, and said, "You might want to sit down first. It's a bit of a jolt."

Sherlock scoffed, and remained standing. After another shaky breath, Calla tilted her head upwards, forcing herself to meet his eyes.

_Without warning, Sherlock was back in his mind palace. And yet, it wasn't his mind palace. Half of the area was the lab at Bart's, clean and white, with the long tables, experiments, microscopes, and the like. That was the side Sherlock was standing on. But halfway through, it changed into a forest that could only be described as eldritch. All the trees were overgrown and twisted, with thick arching canopies, and many with Spanish moss draped along their branches. Strange lights flitted through some of the branches, and he could hear the pattering of rain up above. And standing just in front of him was Calla, nervously toying with a lock of hair._

_Sherlock could feel his heart pounding, and his stomach twisting uncomfortably with apprehension. But he could tell that these emotional reactions were not his own...they were hers._

_"So when you make eye contact, you end up inside the other person's head?" his mind palace avatar asked aloud._

_Calla looked somewhat surprised at his figuring it out so quickly, but not that much. The contents of her stomach settled. "Sort of. I can see and hear your thoughts, feelings and memories, and you can see and hear mine."_

_"Fascinating."_

_She giggled slightly at the word; before he could ask why, a tall man with pointed ears, wearing a blue shirt, materialized in the trees next to her. He raised one eyebrow at Sherlock, and said in almost the exact same tone, "Fascinating."_

_"Who's that?"_

_"Mr. Spock. It's from a very old TV show; he's partly from an alien species who learned how to suppress their emotions."_

_This brought up a memory of his own; he suddenly heard John's voice saying, "Okay, Spock, just take it easy." "So that's what he meant. Hmph."_

_Mr. Spock wandered off back into the trees, and Sherlock, anxious to satiate his curiosity, crossed the boundary onto the mossy forest floor._

_"Why did this manifest in your memory?" he wondered aloud, kneeling and rubbing some moss between his fingers._

_"This is a representation of the forest surrounding our town back where we live. It's a nice place to explore sometimes," Calla explained. "For me, this is part of my home. Just like the lab is partly yours."_

_Sherlock ignored this, taking a closer look at some of the trees. Curiously, he saw that they all had what looked like door handles coming out of the trunk. He grabbed the nearest one, and pulled it open; inside the tree was Tristan, reading a book while sprawled across a ratty old sofa. He barely moved, except for his eyes darting across the page, and his tail twitching in excitement at whatever he was reading. The scene was tinged with feelings of warmth and contentment._

_Sherlock shut the door again, and looked at Calla._

_"This is one of your memories?"_

_"Yes. They all appear to be in the trees. Which is interesting; this is the first time my thought-sharing has ever been like this. Not that I've done it that often, but you know."_

_"Whyever not?"_

_"Because it's terribly intimate, and there's no way to turn it off. Ever."_

_Begrudgingly, Sherlock conceded the point. There were some times when it would be best not to show people his thoughts, even if it meant getting to see theirs. Then one particular tree caught his attention, further into the woods. Unlike the others, which were in various shades of green and brown, the bark was completely black. It hunched over on itself, all blighted and withered, branches curled like claws. Even though he was not given to fancy, Sherlock had to admit that this was a very evil-looking tree. So naturally he headed right for it. He heard Calla follow after him, trying to stop him, but he was already at the tree, turning the gnarly handle. Inside, he just caught a glimpse of a tall, angry man, bloodshot hazel eyes glittering with malice, a beer bottle clutched in one beefy hand-before the door slammed shut again, nearly catching his fingers._

_Sherlock looked down and saw Calla standing in front of him, one hand pressed firmly against the door._

_"Sorry, but you're not allowed to look at that. That's personal." A sharp spike of fear lurched through her; Sherlock felt it too._

_Without meaning to, Sherlock's avatar mused, "Despite the lack of resemblance, I can tell that man is your father. Chronic alcoholic, violent temperament, you associate him with evil, as manifested by the tree in which you contain his memory. Therefore-"_

_"Therefore shut up!"_

_The voice came from behind him; in surprise Sherlock turned around, and saw his mind palace John standing there, glaring at him._

_"Not Good, Sherlock."_

_"I can't help it if she can hear my thoughts!" he protested._

_"Maybe not, but you can know when to drop the subject, and set it aside for later! This is like what happened at the Christmas party, remember?"_

_Despite himself, Sherlock cringed. How could he forget? Inadvertently he noticed that Molly was standing nearby, wearing that dress, tears in her eyes as she whispered, "You always say such horrible things." Quickly he forced her to disappear._

_"...Does that mean I should kiss her, too?"_

_The mind palace John rubbed his forehead with one hand._

_"No, you idiot! Just apologize, if you're actually sorry, I can't tell for sure, and __leave off__."_

_Sherlock looked back at Calla; she was still standing at the tree, her back to it now, as if she were trying to keep her father inside as much as keep Sherlock out. Her fear had dissipated somewhat as she watched him and John argue, and now she was actually somewhat amused._

_"What?" Sherlock demanded._

_"John's your conscience," was all she said. As she did, an animated anthropomorphic cricket carrying an umbrella and wearing a top hat briefly appeared on her shoulder._

_The avatar of John chuckled. "Well, somebody has to do the job. He certainly doesn't."_

_"Shut up."_

_Much to his surprise, Sherlock was permitted to explore the innards of Calla's mind a little more. His had been such a wide breach of privacy, he expected to be kicked out on his metaphorical ear. But she let him continue poking around a bit more, while she crossed over to his side of the mind palace, examining the lab. Of course, once he saw she was in his part of the connection, he very soon went over there to ensure that she 'didn't touch anything,' so to speak. She didn't get too nosy, however; just peered through the eyepiece of one of the microscopes, opened a few drawers, looked at the pieces of trivia inside. At one point she looked right at him, and said out of the blue, "This is where you met Dr. Watson."_

_To his horror, Sherlock found himself having to ask, "How do you know that?"_

_"Your memory of him is more substantial here. And there's just a very warm feeling associated with it." She smiled. Then her expression suddenly changed into a grimace, and she rubbed her forehead with one hand._

_"I'm getting a bit of a headache; I've never shared thoughts with anyone for this long. Sorry, but I need to stop."_

_"No, wait!" he protested; he needed to see more-_

***/***

Too late. Calla had blinked, breaking the connection. Now they were back in the world; she sitting at the table, rubbing her temples with the fingers of one hand; he standing-no, at some point he had sat down in the other chair, still clutching Fang, who had groggily awakened and was now cleaning his ear. As soon as he realized this, he shoved the dragon's snout away.

"Stop that, Fang." He looked at the girl. This power of hers was absolutely intriguing; after they caught up with Moriarty and solved the problem of the catoblepas, he had to learn more about it.


End file.
